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I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 








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THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 



THE DOCTRINE OF AN INHERENT POWER IN 
MEDICINE A FALLACY. 



THE ULTIMATE SPECIAL PROPERTIES OF VITALITY AND 

THE LAWS OF VITAL FORCE CONSTITUTE THE 

FUNDAMENTAL BASIS OF MEDICAL 

PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE. 



WILLIAM R. DUNHAM, M. D. 






"If we are weak, let us fall back upon tradition and belief for support ; if we are 
strong, let us see what there is outside of belief, and don't care what the world says." — 
Louis Agassiz. 



BOSTON: 
JAMES CAMPBELL, PUBLISHER. 

1876. 




CP 



Copyright, 1876, 
By WILLIAM R. DUNHAM, M. D 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the preparation of this volume, I have omitted 
many of the theoretical details belonging to the science, 
with the view only of pointing out our more important 
fallacies, and the recovery of the fundamental principles 
involved in a correct theory of medical science. 

It is very important that the profession should have a 
reliable theory by which the problems of the science can 
be more satisfactorily explained, affording a better guide 
in the details of practice ; also that the non-professional 
should be sufficiently acquainted with the general princi- 
ples of our profession to enable them to distinguish be- 
tween quackery and rational practice. 

I have endeavored to illustrate the principles in the 
most simple, brief, and effectual manner, and where it 
was possible, to avoid the use of technical terms above 
the comprehension of the average mind, and give a vivid- 
ness to the idea without pretensions to elegance or liter- 
ary merit. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Science 7 

II. Force and its Application 15 

III. Theory op Vital Force, or Vitality ... 23 

IV. The Application of the Theory of Vitality. — Dis- 

ease 49 

V. Materia Medica 80 



PART SECOND. 

Different Systems of Practice . . •---._• . . 105 

The Present State of Medical Philosophy . . . 117 
The Drift of Medical Research and its Influence on 

the People 126 

Conclusion. — The Plan of Life 135 



SYNOPSIS. 



The present basis of the theory of medical science is 
indoctrinated from two sources or powers, which are made 
responsible for the activities manifested by the human organ- 
isms in health and disease, namely, the presumed latent and 
inherent power in materia medica and poisons, and the inhe- 
rent power of the organism or vital power. 

The supposed power in materia medica and poisons is an error 
of gigantic magnitude, which has no place in nature, and is the 
greatest delusion of thought ever adopted by civilized humanity. 

The science of medicine is based on only one source of 
power, namely, the vital power ; and a correct theory of 
vitality demonstrates the ideal delusion which has invested 
materia medica and poisons with active principles or inherent 
powers. 

The relation of materia medica and poisons to the human 
organism not one of power, but one of cause. 

Causes may be derived from various sources, but organic 
activities in health and disease receive their momentum from 
vital power. 

A REVOLUTION IN MEDICAL PHILOSOPHY IS INEVITABLE. 

No change suggested in the practice of our science, but a dif- 
ferent explanation demanded. 

The incorporated errors in the presumed first principles have 
proved very disastrous to the non-professional as well as the 
profession, and given improper direction to thought, thus 
abridging the utility to be derived from a correct knowledge 
of the science. 



PART FIEST. 



CHAPTER L 

SCIENCE. 

A science is not alone the assemblage of facts in 
nature : but includes a knowledge of the laws, which ex- 
plain those facts in a rational manner. Facts are merely 
the elements of a science ; but until those facts have been 
sifted and compared, and general principles or laws de- 
duced therefrom, which correctly account for the succes- 
sive order of incidents, we have no science. 

The theory of a science consists in the explanation of 
those laws, on which facts are dependent ; thus a science 
embraces not only facts, but the philosophy of how, and 
why they occur. 

The three great natural sciences, namely, Astronomy, 
Chemistry, and Medicine, constitute the more primary 
and important branches which have engaged the atten- 
tion of philosophers ; to elucidate for practical purposes 
the laws which .govern each department. Astronomy 
and chemistry, after struggling through a long period of 
discordant philosophies, finally triumphed by the recovery 
of those principles or laws which afford a correct expla- 



8 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

nation of the facts in their respective departments ; and 
are consequently called the positive sciences. 

To enumerate the various theories which have been 
put forward, to explain the phenomena of astronomical 
facts, and their strong hold on the belief of the people, 
which have now passed into oblivion — or the various 
doctrines of Alchemy, out of which chemistry became de- 
veloped to a science — would avail nothing except to illus- 
trate how ardently the people have grasped those errors, 
and sought their perpetuation ; also their great reluctance 
to yield them up and give place to principles which now 
guide all students of those departments, through similar 
channels of thought. 

The doctrines to-day of the sciences of astronomy and 
chemistry are based on a correct recognition of the law ; 
consequently there is but one school of philosophy which 
indoctrinates theories, in explanation of the general facts 
involved in those sciences, and we are thus persuaded to 
admit, that a science whose primary principles are cor- 
rectly interpreted, furnishes but one system or school of 
philosophy. 

So long as the facts of a science are not explainable on 
recognized primary principles, which are both probable 
and incontrovertible, there will be a variety of schools 
each laboring to gain numerous converts to their particu- 
lar belief. We may thus with propriety, in view of our 
present condition, ask if the medical doctrines of the 
various schools are entitled to be classified as correct prin- 
ciples of a science ? It is generally conceded that the 
science of medicine is already established. We cer- 
tainly have a large assemblage of positive facts, but not, 



SCIENCE. 9 

however, until those facts can be explained on one set of 
principles, can we claim to be indoctrinating the princi- 
ples or correct theory of science. 

A careful survey of the various theories and systems 
of medical practice which contribute to make up the pro- 
fessions of the age, each earnestly advocated with a zeal 
untiring and worthy of all praise, contrasts most strangely 
with the idea that our Creator provided but one code of 
laws, which govern health and account for the phenomena 
of disease. Also, that He provided but one code which 
is involved in a correct explanation of vital force, and the 
re]ation of materia medica to the human system. 

Some of the errors of our theories to-day may be dif- 
ficult and slow to reason into oblivion, notwithstanding 
they have no true ideal in nature ; but are entailed upon 
our belief, with such an honesty of purpose, that to op- 
pose, seems like offending proprieties. Thus for a long 
time, generations have come into the world philosophi- 
cally weighted with a destiny against which they have 
had no power to contend. 

With this realizing sense of our situation it is not dif- 
ficult, however, to reason up to a point of agreement with 
those of our school, that the others are very much in the 
wrong ; but each school of theory is inclined to refuse to 
be reasoned against ; and the different schools of medicine 
have each settled down into a state of self- consciousness 
that they are the wise ones, the true disciples of nature. 

" It is not difficult to satisfy intelligent men that there 
is a design in nature ; but the problem consists in becom- 
ing able to recognize what that design is." 

With the numerous dissimilar theories and systems on 



10 THEORY OF MEDldAL SCIENCE. 

one side, and the belief that there was a design on the 
other, the inference certainly follows that there is an error 
in some school of philosophy ; that there must be incor- 
porated into the doctrines of science principles which 
are erroneous ; yet to multitudes of earnest and intel- 
ligent people, each school has much the appearance of 
truth. Each school denies harboring the monster Error, 
but they can see the form, wandering through the halls of 
rival institutions. 

If there is any science in our profession, the legitimate 
duty of inquiry and research consists in recovering the 
original ideas, and pursuing them correctly through their 
various intricate windings, enabling us to recognize the 
primary principles with a correctness so self-evident, that 
all who study the science unavoidably arrive at the same 
conclusion. The present idea on the part of the differ- 
ent schools is, in substance, that they are in possession of 
nearly all the great fundamental principles of the science ; 
out of which they have constructed numerous theories 
for the elucidation of the facts, and that the admitted 
problems, yet unsolved, are not enigmas through any 
mistake which has been already made, but are such in 
consequence of some unrecognized principle, which is 
desirable to discover and add to our present basis for 
theoretical use. I shall, however, claim the reverse, that 
those enigmas have an existence in consequence of an 
error, which we have already perpetrated, in the recog- 
nition of principles. 

The classification of the principles of a science are not 
of human contrivance, but are the recovery of those 
ideas that were in the Creative mind. And to better 



SCIENCE. 11 

illustrate our situation by analogy, I will refer to the 
science of astronomy. During the early study of this 
science mankind reasoned from appearances, and the sun 
was supposed to revolve around our earth ; theories were 
constructed to account for the position of planets by 
cycles and epicycles, until it required five circular mo- 
tions to explain the irregularities of a single planet. 
Theorizing from this basis, complexities multiplied until 
the celebrated King Alphonso remarked that "if he had 
been consulted at the creation he could have done the 
thing better." 

It is generally admitted that the following rule holds 
good under all circumstances : That when pursuing the 
study of a science and a principle is recognized, out of 
which there is to be developed the details of a science, 
should that principle be erroneous, the further it is pur- 
sued the greater the complexities, which require multi- 
plied inventions to overcome; and thus discordant and 
contradictory theories will sooner or later make philoso- 
phers exclaim like Alphonso. Reversely, if a true prin- 
ciple is recognized, the further the subject is pursued, the 
more we admire the harmony and see the wisdom of the 
Creative mind. We readily understand that the scienco 
of astronomy, studied from its early recognized basis, was 
no science ; the facts were established, but the principle 
or theory was erroneous. Therefore, the phenomena 
remained a mystery, because the people were in posses- 
sion of no law by which to explain them. 

Eventually the mind became more comprehensive, and 
it was necessary to surrender those early views or inter- 
pretations ; but it was very humiliating to philosophic 



12 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

pride to thus yield that position, even untenable as it 
now appears ; and history informs us that attempts to 
make this change were received with much reluctance ; 
which illustrates not only the tenacity, but the almost 
utter impossibility for mankind to comprehend principles 
in opposition to long continued customs. 

When they changed their base and pursued the inves- 
tigation with the idea that the sun was the central body, 
and recognizing the law or force of gravitation as the 
immediate controlling force, mankind recovered those 
primitive ideas of the design, and thus developed cor- 
rectly the details of a science out of which is now a har- 
monious whole, embodying principles which are unfolded 
alike to all intelligent humanity. 

How is it with medical science ? Are we entangled, 
like ancient astronomers, with erroneous first principles? 
Have we interpreted a principle out of which we are en- 
deavoring to develop the details of a science, and have 
yet to learn that it is false ? Must we surrender some of 
those principles which have ever been the base of our 
medical philosophy ? These are questions for our consid- 
eration. 

Are we, in this age of wisdom, — an age endowed with 
more intelligence than we have reason to believe ever 
existed in the human family previous to our time, — the 
victims of antiquated errors, errors which have been 
transmitted by those who have ever been the shining 
lights, to guide us from time immemorial to the present 
era ? Such are the thoughts to be presented in the fol- 
lowing pages. 

Are you ready to consider it ? Are you a devout and 



SCIENCE. 13 

sincere disciple of Science, willing to surrender those con- 
ventional principles which contribute to the present pomp 
and pride of medical lore, and accept a new basis for 
Science' sake ? Remember that mankind, the most ex- 
alted production of God's creative power, must neces- 
sarily be enveloped with the surrounding of laws more 
intricate and difficult to interpret, than relate to those in- 
animate orbs of the solar system ; yet contemporaneous 
with that period when man contemplated the wonders 
of the universe and sought to recover the primitive idea, 
out of which to develop the sciences — at the very period 
when his imagination interpreted the earth as the centre 
of the solar system, his imagination also established a 
principle to explain the facts of medical science. 

At this time, reasoning from appearances only, man es- 
tablished primary principles for both sciences. The one 
relating to astronomy was very insignificant compared 
with the other, yet it deluded the mind of man for centu- 
ries ; but was finally proved to be false. The other, relat- 
ing to medical science, has continued to be transmitted 
to our generation, and it is my purpose to convince the 
reader that that principle is also false. Reasoning by 
analogy : if at that time the brain power was not sufficient 
to cope with the lesser problem, an opinion from the same 
source relating to a more profound one should be received 
under protest. 

The imaginative principle to which I refer, anciently 
established, which is indoctrinated by our schools to-day, 
is that which endows materia medica and poisons with 
inherent potvers that can act on the human organism. 

I now assert that this accepted principle is a fallacy ; 



14 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

and I shall establish incontrovertible premises in sup- 
port of this assertion in the following pages. The im- 
mutability of God's plan when revealed to us, consti- 
tutes the principle of a science ; and is not in harmony 
with that fixedness of purpose when it interprets the ac- 
tivity manifested in living tissue, as being dependent on 
powers, endowed both to organic and inorganic matter ; 
such interpretation would not be in harmony with the 
doctrine of Special Laws, and would invalidate the claim 
which provides for the existence of a science ; which 
implies that each department in nature is fulfilled by an 
activity ordained in a special law of force. 



CHAPTER II. 

FOKCE AND ITS APPLICATION. 

The term force is employed to designate a power 
which moves matter and produces change. Matter and 
force are inseparable ; thus we know nothing of force, 
except through matter. Our solar system has, inherent 
to its various orbs, a force or power which keeps them 
in constant motion ; we know nothing of the power iso- 
lated from the material ; yet through the material, we 
become aware not only of its existence, but acquire a 
knowledge of its laws ; and can predict the time at which 
certain astronomical events will take place. We call this 
force the power of gravitation — this force keeps in mo- 
tion our planetary system, with an unerring certainty, 
acting on all bodies, at all distances ; and a knowledge of 
this law enables this department to become one of the 
positive sciences. All matter is susceptible to the force 
of gravitation ; and various divisions and subdivisions 
of matter are susceptible to other superadded special 
forces. Chemical force is like the force of gravitation in 
one respect ; that is, it acts on all matter, but unlike it 
in another respect, it acts only at insensible distances, 
while gravitation acts at all distances. Chemical force 
acts to produce those changes of matter, which enter 
into combinations, thus producing a substance unlike 



16 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

either of the separate elements which form the com- 
pound. 

Water is a compound body composed of oxygen and 
hydrogen, whose separate elements in their ultimate state 
are gases ; chemical force is expressed oftentimes as the 
law of affinity ; that is, certain elements are said to have 
an affinity for each other, when they enter into combina- 
tion. Among the sub-forces involved in chemical opera- 
tions, may be mentioned cohesive force, which holds par- 
ticles of the same kind together, as lead, silver, and gold. 
Heat force separates these particles ; thus antagonizing 
the force of cohesion. The whole material universe, min- 
eral, vegetable, and animal, when reduced to an ultimate 
analysis, consists of only about sixty-five elements, or dif- 
ferent kinds of matter. And the different ways which this 
matter is combined by the various forces, gives variety to 
the mineral, vegetable, and animal world. 

These sixty-five elements which comprise all this ma- 
terial world, are divided into two grand divisions, for 
purposes of study ; the line of separation is made by a 
limited ability of certain forces. Thus chemical force 
acts on all these elements to form chemical compounds ; 
while organic forces act on only about sixteen of the ele- 
ments to form organic compounds or bodies. Thus, all 
those elements which are used by the organic forces, veg- 
etable and animal, are called organic elements ; and those 
which the organic forces will not use, are called inorganic 
elements. Thus we study the material as related to the 
organic and inorganic forces. Chemical force is an inor- 
ganic force ; the products not being possessed of life. 
Organic forces are again sub-divided into two grand di- 



FORCE AND ITS APPLICATION. 17 

visions, namely, vegetable forces, and animal forces, each 
of which has a great variety of special sub-divisions mani- 
fested in the different species of vegetable and animal life. 

Vegetable forces organize material, and form certain 
bodies ; and chemical force disorganizes that material, 
and takes the body to pieces. Thus, chemical force an- 
tagonizes vegetable force ; one builds organisms, and the 
other destroys them. Also animal forces build organisms, 
and chemical force tears them asunder; thus chemical 
force takes both vegetable and animal organisms back to 
their elementary condition. Another distinction in re- 
gard to the organic forces, consists in the different abili- 
ties of the vegetable force and animal force, in the ob- 
taining of material for their separate organizations. 

Vegetable force has the ability to take the elements, 
and chemical compounds, to form organisms, and draw 
its support from this source only. 

Animal force cannot take the elements, or chemical 
compounds, and appropriate and assimilate them as con- 
stituents of an animal organism, but all animal bodies 
have to obtain their support from the vegetable organ- 
isms. 

All animal life, from the lowest to the highest, draws its 
nourishment, directly or indirectly, from vegetable prod- 
ucts ; thus the vegetable is a development between the 
mineral and animal. 

No animal organism can assimilate any material as 
nutriment, except it has been previously subjected to the 
changes wrought by vegetable force ; one animal, like the 
carnivorous or the fishes of the sea, may eat and assimi- 
late the material of another animal ; but this same mate- 

2 



18 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

rial has at some previous period been subjected to the 
forces of vegetation, and been thus previously organized. 
This law holds good in every instance ; consequently 
chemical compounds prepared by nature or by art are 
never within the reach of vital powers, and cannot be 
digested or assimilated by animal forces. 

It is well to remember this distinction, for there are 
certain medical theories in regard to iron and other ele- 
ments which, chemically prepared, are urged upon the 
belief of the public as chemical food ; the error of these 
theories is apparent, when we consider that the foregoing 
laws are never suspended. 

Water, a chemical compound, forms a constituent part 
of the animal organism; but it is not digested or assimi- 
lated, as we understand the term. It remains water, and 
is unchanged, becoming the vehicle by which nutrient 
material is conveyed to the blood, and through the blood 
to all parts of the system ; also the only vehicle through 
which waste or effete matter is conveyed from all parts 
of the system to the excretory organs for removal. 

Atmospheric air, containing oxygen in its elementary 
state, fulfills an important duty in the animal organism ; 
but it is not assimilated like the constituent oxygen of a 
vegetable product, but fulfills a chemical relation, favor- 
ing elimination and regulating temperature ; thus respira- 
tion employs physical principles for physiological purposes. 

The relation of chemical force to the formation of ani- 
mal organisms, consists in inducing changes in matter, 
within the organism, which more readily renders the 
waste material susceptible of elimination. When vitalized 
matter has fulfilled its usefulness to the organism, and 



FORCE AND ITS APPLICATION. 19 

vital force has ceased to use it, chemical force may in- 
duce changes which favor its escape. Also, chemical 
force may induce changes within the body, forming prod- 
ucts which are the cause of disease ; and again the causes 
of disease may be rendered less obnoxious by chemical 
change and more easily eliminated. 

Chemical force will develop heat, also animal force 
will develop heat, and just what proportion of animal 
heat is due to chemical force, may be difficult to deter- 
mine. 

All vegetative products are not food for the human 
species, but it is very probable that each individual vege- 
tation may produce a product, susceptible of becoming 
assimilated by the organism of some animal species. 

Those vegetable products we recognize as food when 
deprived of their own vital functions may become con- 
stituents of a higher organization, that is, constituents 
of animal organisms ; but cannot become food for other 
plants without being subjected to the retrogade changes 
induced by chemical force. 

The animal organism, after being deprived of life, can 
be transformed into other animal organisms, but cannot 
be transformed into a vegetable organism, without first 
being returned by chemical agency to the elementary 
state. 

When thus returned, vegetable force reconstructs the 
same materials ; but its own protoplasm cannot be trans- 
formed from vegetable to vegetable. Vegetable proto- 
plasm can be transformed to animal protoplasm, and when 
thus organized, animal protoplasm can be transformed to 
other animal protoplasm, indefinitely. 



20 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

The inference might be that the further we continued 
the transfer of animal protoplasm, the less enduring would 
be animal life thus nourished. 

Protoplasm signifies matter endowed with life so or- 
ganized that it performs organic function ; the same mat- 
ter deprived of life but not disorganized is also a proto- 
plasm until it has undergone decomposition. Animal or- 
ganisms cannot make protoplasm from ultimate elements, 
but must take them from plants or some other animal. 
Therefore, for the origin of protoplasm, we must de- 
pend on the vegetable world: plants are the accumula- 
tors and animals the distributors. 

These conditions of transfers, seem to be one way de- 
signed for the preservation of human life ; even if it is 
not the best way, it would be preferable under certain 
circumstances, and illustrates the admirable wisdom of 
our Creator, by affording means for preserving and pro- 
longing our existence. The idea is a grand one. The veg- 
etable is not functionally self supporting, but self produ- 
cing; while animal organisms are both self supporting 
and self producing. Man may transfer the vegetable 
protoplasm into his own organization, or certain her- 
bivorous animals may transfer a vegetable protoplasm 
from those kinds of vegetation which man cannot trans- 
fer, and this protoplasm can be transferred for our use ; 
also the herbivorous animal may be eaten by another 
animal, and this one by another, and so continue ; and 
man at any period of these transfers can appropriate the 
protoplasm for his own support, thus affording testi- 
mony that even our worldly life is cared for in a manner 
unlike any other species. 



FORCE AND ITS APPLICATION. 21 

There is something beautiful in the association of 
thought, that the force of gravitation prepares the way 
for chemical force, chemical force prepares the way for 
vegetable force, and vegetable force prepares the way for 
animal force, and animal force prepares the way for a 
higher order of force called human or brain force, pos- 
sessed of mental faculties which enable us to look back 
upon the succession of changes upon which humanity is 
dependent, and take into comprehension a similitude of 
thought, and recover the original idea of design. 

It is maintained by some scientists that force is a unit 
variously manifested. Now, even admitting that to be 
so, it is not within our limits to recognize it as such ; we 
can only become familiar with its expression and laws as 
manifested in the several departments of science- 
There is a law and order to each special department, 
and when we understand what that law and order is, we 
have fulfilled the very extent of our research in that par- 
ticular direction. 

During the early study of science, more importance 
was attached to the peculiarities of physical phenomena, 
than the inquiry into the basis or law of force on which 
the phenomena was dependent. The theory of an unseen 
force has been considered as tending more to make a vis- 
ionary student than a practical man, consequently the 
theory of the law of force has always advanced in the 
background. It is only after a long period of philo- 
sophical grievance that theory becomes capable of main- 
taining a dignity which courts respect and which estab- 
lishes permanent modes of thinking. 

The rational explanation of all phenomena implies 



22 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

the necessity of a theory of force. A theory may have a 
superstructure built on imagination alone, or it may have 
material facts for an attainable opinion, surrounded by 
firm frontiers of reason and cooperative judgment ; and 
such a one affords a mighty instrument for defining ideas 
into practical shape. 

All science is based on some power or force which is 
responsible by its laws for the course events take ; and it 
becomes important to inquire where that power or force 
resides which is involved in the science of medicine, and 
what are its laws and in what it is inherent. 




CHAPTER III. 

THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 

Organic forces, both vegetable and animal, are called 
vital forces ; and the vital force or vitality is the sum of 
the energies of a living body. It is that principle or 
power which establishes our individuality, and is a dis- 
tinct force -that converts certain material into vitalized 
or living tissues executing those duties called physio- 
logical functions, and is also endowed with a linx 
ability of self-preservation. 

We are not to consider this power as an entiti^6r 
such is beyond the limit of mental research ; butWcer- 
tairi how this power expresses itself in our organism or 
individuality ; that is, learn whether it manifests itself 
merely by one peculiar property, or several distinct prop- 
erties. 

The force of gravitation has but one property or way 
of manifesting itself, which is the tendency to draw all 
bodies to one common centre. Each planetary body hav- 
ing this power, enables the different orbs to overcome 
opposing attractions, and maintain their relative position 
and path through the immensity of space. 

The human organism is a more complex body, and is 
endowed not only with the distinct force, vitality ; but this 
force has distinct properties, or ways of manifesting itself, 



24 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

and what each of those ultimate properties fulfill, as an 
expression of vital power, becomes the extreme limit of our 
research. We cannot go behind that law of manifestation 
and comprehend anything more remote. In order to take 
our position in the scale of development it becomes im- 
portant to notice that stones grow ; plants grow and live ; 
animals grow, live, and have motion, sensation, and sensi- 
bility. 

The peculiar, distinct, ultimate vital properties, which 
in the aggregate include all there is of vital force, are 
made apparent to our senses through the three properties 

of CONTRACTILITY, SENSATION, and SENSIBILITY. 

Those three vital properties, or distinct ways of mani- 
festing life force, are all there is involved in our individ- 

alization, and relate us to ourselves and the external 

TLrld. 

iLvery motion, function, or action manifested in the 
human system which is an evidence of life, is dependent 
on one or more of these three vital properties. We cannot 
go behind them more remotely, but can advance from 
this basis and recognize complexities of organic function 
and action. Therefore, in order to acquire a correct 
theory of vitality or knowledge of the laws through 
which this force is manifested, it is important to recog- 
nize all that each one of these vital properties can do, 
as an expression of that principle we call vitality. 

Contractility is that vital property which executes 
motion or movement ; it alone executes every action we 
call a motion, through a certain class of nerves, and this 
class of nerves never do anything but this one function, 
and are called the nerves of motion. 



yyia 
mi 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 25 

The elevation of the papillae of the skin, which are 
called " goose pimples," and the contraction of muscular 
fibres in all parts of the body, the executing of the heart's 
movements, the motions in respiration, are each a man- 
ifestation of this principle. 

Contractility is manifested only by muscular fibre ; and 
two unlike and distinct sources generate a power which 
gives momentum or activity to this property, and oc- 
casions it to execute motion ; namely, instinct, and intel- 
lect or will. 

The motions of organic life, such as the heart's action 
and respiration, and all those functions pertaining to 
organic development, are presided over by an instinct 
which is generated in the ganglionic centres. Voluntary 
motions are presided over by the will which is generated 
by the brain. 

The instinct may generate a power, and give mo- 
mentum to convulsive actions in those muscles usually 
under the control of the will. And again, certain muscles 
which are not under the control of the will, like the mus- 
cles of the heart, may have their rhythmical action 
suspended by a spasmodic action, and death ensue ; thus 
illustrating that action, authorized by the instinct, is not 
always rhythmical and innocent. 

How instinct or will is generated, is beyond our limit 
of research ; the fact alone that it is generated and the 
laws by which it is manifested, includes all that is possi- 
ble for us to know. 

Instinct and will, both authorize activities through that 
vital property, contractility ; thus the ganglionic centres 
and the brain, have the ability to give direction to motion, 



26 THEOEY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

and it is what these two guiding influences occasion to be 
done, that enables us to know that there is such a direct- 
ing quality inherent to organization. 

Instinct is a controlling organic attainment, generated 
by the ganglionic centres and cerebellum, or lower por- 
tion of the brain substance. Will is a controlling in- 
fluence generated by the cerebrum or superior portion of 
the brain. 

Sensation is that vital property which recognizes con- 
tact, either on the surface or inside among the struc- 
tures ; those nerves which recognize contact or touch ful- 
fill no other duty. Sensation is performed at insensible 
distances, and it may be pleasant and agreeable or irrita- 
ble to various degrees of pain ; it is, nevertheless, a sen- 
sation. 

Whatever the sensation may be is conveyed to the 
ganglionic centres, and may be conveyed to the brain ; 
thus sensations are conveyed to two unlike sources of 
generated powers : one the ganglionic centre and cere- 
bellum, where instinct is generated, and the other the 
cerebrum, where the will is generated. Ganglionic cen- 
tres are distributed all over the organism, and consist of 
a small mass of nerve-like substance, from which more 
or less nerve fibres lead and connect with other similar 
centres, also lead to the various muscles which are to re- 
ceive the impulse of motion. Nerves of sensation and 
nerves of motion both lead to the ganglionic centres, and 
from these ganglionic centres, nerves not only lead to 
other similar centres, but also communicate with the 
spinal cord, and thence to the brain ; all of which com- 
plex operations are of much importance, but unnecessary 
to mention, in the fulfillment of my purpose. 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 27 

Says Brown-Sequard : " If we separate a nervous cen- 
tre from the nerves we find that in four days the nerve 
has lost its power altogether. It seems, therefore, that 
something came from the nervous centre which was use- 
ful in the production of forces there." 

Sensations conveyed to a nerve centre, or sensory gan- 
glion like the cerebellum, occasion a diction through in- 
stinct, manifested in the property of contractility or mo- 
tion. Sensations conveyed to the brain or cerebrum may 
occasion a diction through the agency of the will, mani- 
fested by the property of motion or contractility. 

Certain sensations may be conveyed to the nerve cen- 
tres, and not to the cerebrum or brain ; that is, those 
which are in relation to harmonious duties, to be per- 
formed by instinct, as assimilation and heart's action, and 
various other functions ; but all sensations which are con- 
veyed to the brain, are conveyed also to the nerve centre. 
Thus, the instinct may be sufficient to fulfill the required 
duty, but, if necessary, the brain may afford aid. 

Respiration may be carried on through either influ- 
ence ; the sensations by the pneumogastric nerves are 
conveyed to the respiratory ganglion, or nerve centre, and 
instinct exert its influence through the phrenic nerve and 
gives motion to the diaphragm. Or the sensation may be 
carried to the medulla-oblongata and receive an impulse 
from the brain, which can give motion to the diaphragm. 

With a view to illustrate the indistinctness of thought, 
which pervades the minds of eminent scientific philoso- 
phers, I quote from an address, delivered by Prof. T. H. 
Huxley, before the British Scientific Association. In 
alluding to the functions of the brain, he remarks : — 



28 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

" The first proposition that you find definitely and 
clearly stated by Descartes is one which will sound very 
familiar to you at the present day. 

"It is the view, which he was the first, so far as I 
know, to state not only definitely but upon sufficient 
grounds, that the brain is the organ of sensation, of 
thought, and of emotion, — that certain changes which 
take place in the matter of the brain are the essential 
antecedents of those states of consciousness which we 

term sensation, thought, and emotion If it 

should happen to a man that by accident his spinal cord 
is broken across, he becomes paralyzed below the point of 
injury. In such a case his limbs would be absolutely 
paralyzed ; he would have no control over them, and they 
would be entirely insensible. You might prick his feet 
or burn them, or do anything else you like with them, 
and they would be absolutely insensible. Consciousness, 
therefore, so far as we can have any knowlege of it, is 
entirely abolished in that part of the central nervous ap- 
paratus which lies below the injury He is not par- 
alyzed, in the sense of their being deprived of motion, for 
if you tickle the soles of his feet with a feather the limbs 
will be drawn up just as vigorously, perhaps a little more 
vigorously, than when he was in full possession of the con- 
sciousness of what happened to him." 

Professor Huxley makes no distinction between sensa- 
tion and sensibility, and makes thought and emotion fac- 
tors of sensation, using consciousness and sensation as 
synonymous. He also ascribes sensibility and conscious- 
ness to the lower extremities. So long as we permit 
such an incongruous application of language, to describe 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 29 

two unlike vital properties, as if the two were one, we 
shall fail to comprehend the true theory of vitality. 

Various degrees of pain and irritability as well as 
normal sensations, are included in that manifestion 
called sensation. 

Thought, emotion, and consciousness are factors of 
sensibility. 

Nothing can be more fatal to a correct knowledge of 
vitality than the omission to recognize the difference 
between organic sense or sensation, and intellectual sense 
or sensibility. 

Sensibility is that property or vital power manifested 
through the brain ; different from sensation, which per- 
ceives only by instinct at insensible distances ; while sen- 
sibility perceives at all distances, and generates that in- 
fluence which directs voluntary motion. Thus, through 
these two properties of nerve perception we are made 
aware of things both near and distant; therefore, in- 
stinct and will, give direction to all motion manifested by 
the human organism. By sensibility " we trace the foot- 
steps of our wise and intelligent architect throughout all 
this stupendous fabric." 

The terms sensation and sensibility are used very pro- 
miscuously both by medical writers and lexicographers ; 
in medical literature the term sensibility is often applied 
to express acute pain in local injuries ; and lexicographers 
use it in the place of sensation, " as a frozen limb loses 
its sensibility." Such a promiscuous use of special terms 
is suicidal to positive science, and is not allowed in chem- 
istry or astronomy. 

Organic sense or sensation, is the sense of perception 



30 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

by contact at insensible distances. Intellectual sense, or 
sensibility, is the sense of perception through the brain 
at all distances. 

These three vital properties, briefly described, consti- 
tute the aggregate of all the vital forces ; and how each 
behaves under all circumstances, comprises the details of 
applied vital force and theory of vital law. These three 
vital properties relate us to motion, to a knowledge of 
contact or touch, and the immensity of space. This is all 
there is of us ; or in other words, all there is of us is 
manifested through these three vital properties. 

Closely allied to these ultimate vital properties, we 
have the phenomena of irritability and reaction, or reflex 
action, which become very important phenomena, to be 
elucidated. 

What is irritability ? Our medical lexicon defines it, 
"A power, possessed by all living organized bodies, of 
being acted upon by certain stimuli, and moving respon- 
sive to stimulation. It is the ultimate vital property." 
If this definition is correct, and irritability is an ulti- 
mate vital property, we have four, instead of three ulti- 
mate vital properties. I pronounce this definition erro- 
neous, and assert that it is not a " power acted upon by 
stimuli," but it is, however, a " power moving respon- 
sive to stimulation." There is a vast difference between 
the two statements. 

The first, that it is a " power acted upon by stimuli," 
is equivalent to acknowledging that a stimulus is pos- 
sessed of a power inherent to itself ; which is one of the 
great fallacies I propose to disprove. That irritability is 
a " power moving responsive to stimulation," is not only 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 31 

correct, but requires a more detailed explanation. A 
correct understanding of the premises involved in this 
problem is of great value, not for this problem alone, but 
for the prevention of greater errors in the future. 

To illustrate, we have, as factors of this problem, 1st, 
a nerve of motion ; 2d, a nerve of sensation ; 3d, the 
stimulus. The stimulus is brought in contact with the 
nerve of sensation. What does the stimulus do ? Not 
anything, no more than a piece of bread would do in the 
stomach, so far as any inherent power is concerned. The 
nerves of sensation recognize the presence of the bread, 
and the organic instincts or inherent powers of the or- 
ganisms act in a manner relative to its relation, and the 
required wants of the system. The same class of nerves 
recognize the presence of stimuli, and the organic in- 
stinct acts in a manner relative to its relation to the sys- 
tem. There is no inherent power in the bread, although 
it is used by the vital power in the functions of life. 
There is no inherent power in the stimulus, but stimuli 
afford a cause for a changed vital action, and becomes 
useful to the physician in directing the action of vital 
power. Thus, that part of the definition which implies 
that irritability is a " power possessed by all living bodies 
of being acted upon by certain stimuli," is erroneous. 

But that irritability is a " power moving responsive 
to stimulation," is illustrated as follows : The stimulus 
applied to the nerve of sensation becomes a cause. The 
recognition of the stimulus by the nerve is not action of 
the stimulus ; the nerve of sensation is not acted upon 
by any power, but the nerve, as an ultimate property 
of vital power, recognizes the presence of the stimulus, 



32 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

which is all the nerve does ; and a knowledge of this 
presence is conveyed to the ganglionic centres, the gen- 
erators of that power we call instinct ; and this instinct 
gives direction to the nerves of motion, which occasion, 
perhaps, an acceleration of blood to the part if the stim- 
ulus was local. 

This increase of blood gives redness, heat, and per- 
haps more fullness to the part, according to the amount 
of the cause, all things being equal. The parts thus 
changed are said to be in a state of irritability ; that is, 
a disagreeable sensation may exist from the degree of 
congestion and heat which is now in contact with those 
nerves of sensation. The irritability consists only of an 
augmented or disagreeable sensation of the nerves in the 
particular region. The stimulus was the irritant or cause, 
not by virtue of a power inherent to the stimulus, but by 
its presence in contact with the nerves of sensation. 

This explanation of the phenomena of irritability, 
through the three factors mentioned, furnishes the proof 
that the definition is erroneous in another respect, which 
is that irritability is not an " ultimate vital property." 
Irritability is not a vital property unlike sensation ; it is 
sensation disagreeably augmented, nothing more or less. 
It is secondary, instead of being primary or ultimate ; it 
is dependent on conditions supplied to the nerves of sen- 
sation, and is abnormal, consequently cannot be an ulti- 
mate vital property. 

What is Reflex Action ? It is a problem embracing the 
same factors included in irritability, namely, the nerves 
of motion, the nerves of sensation, and the stimulus, or 
cause, whatever it may be. The term " reflex action " 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 33 

implies that there has been a previous action. Let us 
search for the previous or primary action, and see of what 
it consists. The stimulus, or material cause, is applied to 
the nerve of sensation ; sensation is not an action, and it 
is not in any way synonymous with action ; sensation is 
sensation or knowledge of contact, and no other term 
can express it. The presence of the stimulus or material 
is recognized by the nerve of sensation, and the instinct, 
residing in the ganglionic centre, gives impulse to an ac- 
tion through the nerves of motion. 

If sensation could be called an action, this impulse 
through the nerves of motion would be a secondary ac- 
tion, or reflex action ; but the stimulus does nothing, it 
does not act, it is merely in contact with the nerve of 
sensation, and affords a different sensation only, which 
occasions all the thus caused action there is in the case ; 
and this action is a primal or direct action, not a second- 
ary or reflex action. This term, reflex action, is per- 
mitted, through expression, to support an incorrect idea. 

The medical school philosophy is, that the stimuli acts 
on the nerve of sensation, and an action directed back, 
without the intervention of consciousness, takes place, 
and is denominated reflex action. If medical men per- 
sist in the use of the term, it is important that the idea 
so long associated with the stimulus, as having a power 
inherent to itself, which acts, should be discontinued. It 
seems to me, however, that the term reflex operation 
would be more appropriate, and better expressive of the 
occurrence. 

The term reflex action, when applied to the human 
subject, seems either out of place or discordant with it- 
3 



34 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

self, for the plan on which we are designed, embraced in 
the ultimate expression of the three vital properties, — 
contractility, or motion ; sensation ; and sensibility, — 
permits the following illustration, of like applicability in 
principles, yet unlike in representation. When a stimulus 
is applied to the nerve of sensation, and that sensation 
is communicated only to the ganglionic centre, where 
instinct, without the intervention of consciousness, gives 
impulse to the motion, which increases the circulation of 
the part, or occasions spasmodic action of the muscles, 
like strychnia, we are instructed to call it reflex action. 

But if the knowledge of the stimulus, which is applied 
to the nerve of sensation, is communicated to the brain, 
and the will, instead of the instinct, gives volition to a 
muscle, we call it direct action. 

It seems equally proper to call both actions direct. 
The impulse given to one is generated in the ganglionic 
centre, while the other is generated in the brain, the ap- 
plied cause and principle being alike. It is quite appa- 
rent that the term " reflex action " is an outgrowth 
through the belief that there was a primal action on the 
part of the stimulus, and on the same principle we might 
with the same propriety call digestion and respiration a 
reflex action ; and say the food acted on the nerves of 
sensation, to which a responsive impulse reflected back 
that action, which elaborated the fluids for digestive pur- 
poses, or that the effete matter in the venous blood acted 
on the nerve of sensation, which was reflected back by 
the impulse of the pneumogastric ganglion, executing the 
muscular action of respiration, or reflex action. 

I hope to make plain to the reader, before I complete 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 35 

this volume, that the relation which Ave maintain to the 
material world is ordained on the plan that all the action 
on the part of, or expressed by, the living tissue, is a 
primary vital action. Our relation to the material of 
the universe and the immensity of space becomes known 
to us through the ultimate properties of sensation and 
sensibility, at insensible and sensible distances, and all 
action expressed by living tissues, receives its impulse, 
generated either in the nerve ganglions, called instinct, 
or in the brain, called will. 

And whatever action is thus manifested, is in harmony 
with the relation which the said material maintains to 
the human organism, either usable or non-usable. 

If too excessive, some of the usable material is ex- 
pelled unused ; and again, if the material is of that kind 
which is never used or assimilable, the generated im- 
pulse expresses a kind of action which has in view the 
elimination of the material sooner or later. This consti- 
tutes the aggregate, except the repair of mechanical in- 
juries, aside from physiological duties, of that power 
called self-preservative, peculiar to organic life, generated 
and urged to activity ; which superintends the physio- 
logical functions, selecting and appropriating that ma- 
terial which is usable ; also rejecting that material which 
is not usable. 

The three ultimate vital properties which make up the 
aggregate of all there is of power in a human organism, 
perform all those duties which living tissues can per- 
form and express our whole relation to the material 
world and the universe at large. This plan reveals to 
us that vital power is the only power which gives nio- 



36 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

rnentum to vitalize tissue ; that the doctrine of a power 
in medicine, which acts on our living tissues, seems to 
have no abiding place in the ordained plans of the human 
institution. Should I succeed in convincing the reader 
that medicine has no power, do not adopt the conclusion 
that it is of no use. Although looking at this subject 
from its present philosophical basis, and adopted belief, 
it would seem that if we should deprive it of a power it 
would be useless ; but bear in mind, however, that its 
usefulness does not depend on the truth of the philoso- 
phy which our schools associate with it. The philosophy 
is only an invention, to explain a fact, but is not equal 
to the task. When we are convinced that medicine has 
no power, it does not change its relation of usefulness, 
but the law which expresses its usefulness must be ex- 
plained on a different principle from that of an inherent 
power. 

A human being is an organized product due to a cer- 
tain ordained law of power, entitled vital force or vital 
power ; and this vital power has its peculiar and distinc- 
tive manner of manifestation in a variety of ultimate and 
sub-properties, and its only object is, to develop, main- 
tain, and protect the human organism, and every impulse 
generated by the ganglionic nerve centres, denominated 
instinct, are with a view to fulfill this only ordained pur- 
pose. 

The action thus generated may appear wise or unwise, 
and it may be practically either. Our sensibility should 
acquire that culture and discernment which comprehends 
the tendency of the power manifested, and perceive 
whether this instinct is giving the best impulse to ac- 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 37 

tivity, in degree and kind, which the desired expectations 
of the case seem to justify; which may require only to 
be let alone ; or perceive how much out of harmony with 
desired, expectant result ; and guide and direct it; thus, 
with the knowledge of how it behaves under all circum- 
stances, supply that kind and quantity of medicine 
which will, by virtue of its presence (not its power) oc- 
casion an action more in harmony with the best interests 
of the patient. 

When God ordained man, He decreed him all the 
power that was necessary for him ; He did not leave the 
supply of power to be furnished by the intellect, but 
created him in full possession of all necessary powers, 
with an intellectual ability to comprehend the law of 
those powers, and, to a limited extent, control the mani- 
festations, by supplying the causes or material which 
would occasion this power to manifest itself to the best 
interests of the individual. 

In connection with this plan of ordained power mani- 
fested involuntarily, we must necessarily recognize that 
the instinct, which presides more primarily over our or- 
ganism, executes all those actions called physiological 
and pathological. 

Physiological actions perform those duties pertaining 
to nutrition and assimilation, maintaining that balance 
of function termed health, while pathological action in- 
volves those duties or actions pertaining to things not 
usable for assimilative purposes, which must, sooner or 
later, become eliminated for the preservation of the indi- 
vidual, — thus, healthy anatomy is the result of physio- 
logical action, and morbid anatomy the result of patho- 



38 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

logical action, both kinds of action receiving the neces- 
sary impulse from the source denominated instinct. 

LAWS OF VITAL POWER. 

The special ultimate vital properties are governed 
primarily by certain laws, which we will notice in the 
following order : — 

The first law of vital force, with a view to self- 
preservation, executes the required physiological duties, 
and is the subject taught in the name of physiology. 

The secoxd law of vital force, with a view to self- 
preservation, executes the pathological actions, that is, 
all actions which are in relation to material, not for 
physiological purposes, and is the subject erroneously 
taught, as the action of a power inherent to poison, and 
in the cause of disease, and inherent to medicine. 

The second class or law of actions, in relation to poi- 
sons and the cause of disease, we will again subdivide 
into two divisions. 

First, Pathological actions w T hich require to be under- 
stood, but not medicated, because they are doing the 
best that is possible to be done under the circumstances. 

Second, Pathological actions which require to be mod- 
ified or altered by medication. 

Third law. Toleration by instinct. Perhaps this 
term might be improved. It is used to represent a vital 
law or sub-principle which is manifested on the part of 
the nerves of sensation, and is the very opposite of ac- 
tivity ; that is, the usual material which primarily occa- 
sions the nerve of sensation to communicate a knowledge 
of its presence to the ganglionic centres, where an in- 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 39 

stinctive impulse to activity is generated, seems to be 
suspended. Thus the very causes which primarily induce 
pathological or diseased action are tolerated without the 
usual special disturbance. 

This principle, peculiar to organic instinct, is no fancy 
picture to supply a connecting link in theory, but is illus- 
trated in the person of the tobacco user, opium eaters, 
and drinkers of alcoholic stimulants, — the quantities 
which primarily caused great disturbance cease to occa- 
sion the usual effect. This is not due to any peculiarity 
in the article used, but dependent w T holly on the tolera- 
tion which the nervous system adapts itself to, and is 
frequently expressed by the illiterate as the result of 
second nature. 

This law is for the purpose of self-preservation, and 
fulfills a very important relation to the welfare of the 
individual. 

What does it express ? We must admit that tobacco, 
opium, and alcohol are not material used by the organic 
powers for nutritive or physiological purposes ; conse- 
quently it is the duty of the instinctive presiding power 
to generate that impulse to activity which more spe- 
cially eliminates this material. The performance of this 
special duty involves a sacrifice of more or less of the 
accumulated organic force or power ; and if the same 
cause, so long as applied, should occasion the generation 
of this special activity, the organic system would ex- 
haust itself and die much quicker than it would to tol- 
erate its presence and cease to make a special effort for 
elimination, thereby allowing the material to be elimi- 
nated by undisturbed action, in the usual manner of 



40 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

effete matter, as the best that can be done under the cir- 
cumstances. 

This is a wise law of instinct, and is a self preservative 
one. 

Again, this principle is noticeable in persons residing in 
malarious districts, and in the filthy streets of our cities ; 
the causes which are every day experienced by the resi- 
dents, without developing active disease, will not be tol- 
erated by a healthy nervous system fresh from the rural 
districts. The inhabitants tell him he must get " accli- 
mated," or in other words his nervous system must be- 
come tolerant. 

As important as this law is, for the welfare of the indi- 
vidual, it often proves annoying as well as mysterious to 
the physician who long continues the use of one kind of 
medicine. I recently chanced to be present at a New 
England Medical College of much distinction, during a 
lecture on Materia Medica ; the subject was " Ergot and 
its powers." It was said that " the same preparation of 
ergot often acted finely for a period, but would perhaps 
lose its power, or certainly seem to, although the bottle 
had remained corked and properly cared for — and how 
that power escaped, or why it ceased to act, the Professor 
confessed was a problem which would have to wait until 
medical science could explore deeper those mysteries 
which surround us." 

This law of toleration is a wise provision ordained to 
palliate the sins of our ignorance. It is the best which 
can be done under the circumstances for the individual 
welfare ; it obviates to a limited extent those results, 
which ungovernable circumstances would otherwise occa- 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 41 

sion. It retards and postpones the effects of certain 
causes, which the will should exclude, but does not, and 
the instinct would desire to remove, but cannot. It is the 
safety sentinel on guard between instinct and intellect. 

Again, this same principle of toleration modifies many- 
diseases, and with some is the law which measures the 
time of self-limited disease ; very distinctly recognizable 
in pneumonia, when induced by extremes of temperature, 
as will be mentioned hereafter. 

In certain inflammatory troubles, it is the law which 
marks the period for the commencement of recovery, 
and is the essential condition to induce early by medica- 
tion, for the safety of the patient. 

Opium aids in the modification of excessive vital ac- 
tion, and lessens the severity and time of continuation, 
by facilitating a condition similar to toleration ; we might 
say with propriety that certain doses produce artificial 
toleration ; that is, the presence of the opium in the 
blood comes in contact with the nerves of sensation, and 
its presence unfits the nerve from performing its function 
of sensation. Sensation augmented is irritability and 
pain; which is relieved, and the sensation thus dimin- 
ished is a temporary toleration, which permits the same 
causes to exist in contact with nerve fibre ; yet the gen- 
erated impulse to activity is not developed ; thus the 
action is mitigated. 

Also, the principle of toleration is the key to relapsing 
fever ; a certain amount of struggle in the organic sys- 
tem is followed by a subsidence of the paroxysms, and 
the case has a fair outlook for recovery. After a period 
of rest a relapse ensues. 



42 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

The explanation is this : the material causes of the 
fever were so plenty, or the system so enfeebled, that the 
law of toleration was established, which afforded a rest ; 
after which the vital struggle recommenced, with a view 
to expel the cause. 

This principle is a factor in a large variety of problems 
which come under the notice of a physician ; and with- 
out a knowledge of it and its relations to materia med- 
ica and the cause of disease, it becomes impossible to 
effect a true solution of the phenomena we witness. 

The already mentioned special laws of vital force, 
which become responsible for certain events, are not all 
we have to offer as belonging to this department, but 
comprise the more general principles ; and under the 
heads of special disease it will be necessary to draw on 
those mentioned, as well as principles belonging more par- 
ticularly to the case considered. 

The reader may at this point infer that I am desirous 
of recovering the vis medicatrix naturce theory of the 
vitalists, originated by Von Helmont, and previously in- 
cluded in Hippocrates' teachings. If the reader will in- 
form himself of the condition of thought, by those early 
writers, in relation to the recognition of a vital principle, 
he will learn that they accomplished nothing, carried out 
no plan, recovered nothing but a vague idea that there 
was a vital principle, and that it played some part in the 
human system. They did not comprehend that they 
were entertaining and perpetuating an error by claiming 
an inherent power in medicine, but they also entertained 
the idea that there was a vital principle, which possibly 
might in some manner aid in the treatment of disease, 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 43 

and they thought it proper to define this principle as 
being possessed of a power like medicine — which they 
supposed had a power — and they applied to it the term 
vis medicatrix naturce (medical power in nature). 

Thus medical philosophers theoretically endowed medi- 
cine with a power, and subsequently finding that the 
vital power executed activities precisely similar to what 
they supposed the medical power fulfilled, they named 
the vital power, when thus manifested, vis medicatrix 
naturce, which is a very improper term in our science. 
It is very plain that the term was coined to express a 
principle or power of the human organism, which could 
execute duties not physiological ; the idea was correct, 
but the principle was erroneously named, and has thus 
been handed down to us, which is about all that has been 
done or learned in relation to it. 

To illustrate how medical authors dispose of this prin- 
ciple, we quote from " Human Physiology," by John Wil- 
liam Draper, M. D., LL. D., Professor of Chemistry and 
Physiology in the University of New York, page 111. 
" That fancied power, the vis medicatrix naturae, is only 
an ideal expression of the perfection with which the va- 
rious eliminating mechanisms work. Poisonous agents, 
whether they have been introduced from without, or have 
originated from morbid actions within, like all useless or 
noxious products, find their proper channel of escape, and 
the system will thus rid itself of intoxicating liquids and 
narcotic drugs if their quantity does not exceed the 
amount that it can destroy or excrete in a special period 
of time." 

The stand-point of view, from which the foregoing 



44 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

statement was made, was on the basis of vital power, 
which executes various duties for the human organism, 
and is correct. 

Says Robley Dunglison, M. D., author of " General 
Therapeutics and Materia Medica," Professor of Institutes 
of Medicine in Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, 
formerly Professor of Materia Medica in the Universities 
of Virginia and Maryland, vol. i., page 37 : " The ex- 
istence, then, of such an instinctive power can neither be 
denied nor lost sight of in the treatment of disease. The 
error has been, that undue weight has been attached 
to it, so that the practitioner was altogether guided by 

its manifestations The followers of Stahl — the 

great apostle of the doctrine — supposed a power to be 
present in the system of repelling morbific influences, 
and of reestablishing equilibrium when disturbed. There 
are but few cases, however, in which trust can be safely 
placed in this power. It too often happens that diseased 
action in a tissue goes on augmenting until the functions 
of other tissues become deranged by extension of morbid 
action, or by sympathy, and disorganization and death 
follow. We often hear, for example, of fi efforts of na- 
ture,' yet the ideas attached to the expression are very 

imprecise Yet, although we may discard the notion 

of efforts of nature, there is no doubt that good occasion- 
ally results from spontaneous discharges." — Vide page 
39. 

" Theory is the mental process which binds observed 
facts or phenomena together, compares them with each 
other, and deduces appropriate rules of practice. It is to 
theory that we are indebted not only for full, practical 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 45 

usefulness, but for every science. Facts are, doubtless, 
the elements of science, but the science itself does not 
exist, until these facts have been brought together, sifted 
and compared, and great general principles or laws de- 
duced therefrom." What does Dr. Dunglison do with 
this " instinctive power," which should not be " lost sight 
of," which has had an " undue weight attached to it," 
" which we cannot trust," and " may discard the notion," 
yet " good occasionally results from it," and is a " fact " 
which should be " sifted," " and great general principles 
or laws " should be " deduced therefrom ? " Professor 
Dunglison has shed no additional light on the principle ; 
but the contrary, he has dragged it into more difficult 
surroundings, and bid us beware of its untrustworthiness. 

This confusion is the result of looking at it from a 
wrong stand-point. He is an author of a Materia Medica 
instead of Physiology, and is instructing his readers in 
relation to medical power instead of vital power. 

Stahl and others thought that if this power was or- 
dained to execute important duties for the organism, that 
it necessarily must be endowed with a principle of guid- 
ance that would occasion it to always manifest itself har- 
moniously with the best interests of the individual. Ex- 
perience taught their followers that this power could not 
always be trusted ; therefore, this fact occasioned medical 
philosophers to set this principle completely aside in their 
theories, and instead of associating the will power, or 
sensibility with this principle, to guide it, they associ- 
ated their will or sensibility with a supposed power in 
medicine, to guide and control the actions of organic life. 
Medical philosophers overlooked 1 the fact that the instinc- 



46 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

tive and intellectual powers were all the powers that could 
be applied to the organic machinery ; not recognizing the 
instinct and the laws, which modify its manifestations, 
they endowed medicine with a power, manifested by a 
code of laws peculiar to itself, which was theoretically 
made to take the place of that involuntary power which 
the Creator had endowed to man. Medicine as a mate- 
rial is the cause, which occasions the instinctive power to 
thus manifest itself ; but medicine has no inherent power 
which executes those actions by virtue of its own ability. 

It seems plain that the organic duty would be vested 
by the Creator primarily in the instinctive power ; in- 
stead of in medicine, secondarily ; which should execute 
duties independent of the will, in fulfillment of physio- 
logical and pathological actions. 

If this instinct was both instinct and intelligence, there 
would be no occasion ordained in nature which would re- 
quire a medical profession. The fact that the instinctive 
power is not intelligent, but is guided and directed by 
the intellect, indirectly, by using those articles of ma- 
teria medica which will occasion this power to manifest 
itself for the better interests of the individual, constitutes 
the necessity of a medical profession. 

Dr. Dunglison says " the great error consists in depend- 
ing on this power." The error is not in this direction, 
but consists in expecting intellectual abilities or nothing 
from this power, when it possesses only instinct ; thus as 
a power, if it fails to execute its actions intelligently, to 
the best interests of the individual, we are instructed to 
set it aside and use the artificial invention, medical 
power. We have not used any such power, even when 



THEORY OF VITAL FORCE OR VITALITY. 47 

we think we have, for there is none, although we have 
been made to believe that we did. We have adminis- 
tered those medicines which it was proper to administer, 
which have occasioned this instinctive power to act as 
was best to act, thus practicing right, but theorizing 
wrong, and were deceived into the belief that the medi- 
cine occasioned this change by virtue of its own power. 
In conclusion, vitality being a fixed force in nature which 
establishes human identity, must necessarily be governed 
by some laws peculiar to itself ; we cannot make laws 
for its guidance, but possibly may comprehend the law of 
its obedience ; and the knowledge of this law correctly 
set forth constitutes a correct theory of the only power 
capable of giving motion to living tissues. 

A knowledge of the laws of vitality, or the laws of na- 
ture manifested through the human individual, constitutes 
the most essential acquisition required by the medical 
profession. It is a subject omitted in medical literature, 
not found in our text books, and assigned a position be- 
yond our reach. There is, however, a silent conviction 
of thought, in the minds of some profound thinkers, that 
this secret principle or law of vital force, so long unrec- 
ognized, will at some future day illuminate the pathway 
of science, although that much desired revelation is placed 
far in the distance, and is thus expressed : " That this 
generation and generations to come will have passed to 
their everlasting rest before a discovery of the secret of 
vital activity is made." Says Henry Maudsley, M. D., 
F. R. C. P.: "It is easy to perceive how impossible it 
is in the present state of science, to come to any posi- 
tive conclusion with regard to the nature of the vita] 
force." 



48 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

I believe that medical men can understand the nature 
of vital force in this generation, as well as they now do 
the nature of the force of gravitation. The reason med- 
ical men do not understand the nature of vital force is 
not because the subject is so profound, or the profession 
so superficial, it is because they have not looked in the 
right direction, — they have been studying the phantom 
" power in medicine," instead of the law of vital force. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OE VITALITY. 

DISEASE. 

The term Disease is an expression of relations which 
vital force manifests under certain circumstances. It is 
used in a general and also a specific sense. A precise 
definition is not within the limits of possibility, because 
the term is not expressive of an entity, but of relations 
involving quite dissimilar principles. The principle in- 
volved in acute disease may be very unlike that which is 
present in chronic, as will be noticed under cachectic dis- 
ease. 

Life is the manifestation or action of vital force, and 
may be normal or abnormal. Normal action perpetu- 
ates the conditions of structure, through which life may 
be manifested until the natural period of organic disso- 
lution. Abnormal action may change the structure of 
any tissue or organ, and thus render it unfit to perform 
normal actions, abridging its capabilities, causing decrepi- 
tude and death. 

What is the nature of disease ? or, in other words, 
what is the principle involved in the manifestation of 
disease ? The reply to this question, as it will be here 
given, is more specifically applicable to acute disease, 

4 



50 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

and may or may not be applicable to certain chronic 
disease. 

We are to consider the human system as an organic 
body, endowed with special life force or power ; also how 
we are related to the external or material world ; that 
is, what are the ultimate, unlike, special vital properties, 
which in the aggregate constitute the sum total we call 
vitality, and what is the ordained executive duty which 
this force is commanded to fulfill. 

We cannot define or recognize, through the manifes- 
tations of life, anything anterior to sensation, sensibility, 
and motion. We can define certain qualities of our na- 
ture consequent to these properties, although they can- 
not be expressed except through these three properties ; 
therefore, those properties are what enable all the mani- 
festations, of the relations of force to matter. 

This vital force was ordained in the beginning to fulfill 
the instinctive or selective duty of patting together or 
forming organic bodies out of, perhaps, we might say, 
formless material. That is, the selective abilitv or in- 
stinctive wisdom appropriates unto its own individual 
use certain material to perpetuate each distinct individ- 
uality, and eliminates the same from the system after it 
has fulfilled the designed purpose, thus manifesting a 
principle of self-preservation independent of the will. 

Also, this same force is endowed with a limited self- 
preservative ability to repair mechanical injuries and 
eliminate foreign material ; the foreign material may be 
eliminated by the undisturbed depurative functions, or a 
special effort may be made with a view to its elimina- 
tion. 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 51 

This special effort to eliminate may act for the best 
interest of the individual, which the circumstances will 
permit ; or this action may be very unwise and detri- 
mental to individual welfare, and require the superintend- 
ence of sensibility. This action, however, constitutes the 
disease. 

This ability is an ordained duty for self-preservation 
of the individual, and nothing more. The organic force 
or vitality was ordained to fulfill the preservation of the 
individual, both by appropriating useful material and 
rejecting the non-usable, thus establishing, maintaining, 
and perpetuating an existence for the development of the 
highest order of His creation. 1 

Every motion or action in living tissue is a manifes- 
tation of the special property contractibility. This con- 
tractibility receives the impulse to move, either bj a 
generated instinct or will. 

The instinct exercises its duty through a knowledge, 
(if we may use the term) acquired by contact through 
sensation. Whatever material comes in contact with 
the nerves of sensation, becomes known to the presiding 
power, instinct, which issues the organic mandate to put 
into activity physiological actions if the material is a 
nutrient, all things being equal, that is, the supply with 
the wants. If the material thus brought in contact with 
the nerves of sensation is not a nutrient, and non-usa- 
ble, or, in brief, foreign material, and if the said material 

1 The special action of vital force in relation to non-nntrient material or 
poison, which constitutes disease, has been attributed in theory to an ac- 
tion dependent on an inherent power in this said dead or inorganic ma- 
terial. 



52 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

is classed as inert (to be hereafter mentioned) and small 
in quantity, it may be eliminated by the undisturbed 
depurative functions. 

But if the material has a more antagonistic relation 
to the individual welfare, the instinct generates an im- 
pulse which puts into motion actions called pathological, 
or disease. 

I trust the foregoing brief explanation of the premises 
and principles involved in the manifestations of that 
vital action we call disease, will enable the reader to 
more readily understand what may be the cause of dis- 
ease. 

CAUSES OF DISEASE. 

A large quantity of food may be the cause, which if 
not possible to be digested, some other action must dis- 
pose of. 

Retained excrementitious matter, decomposed animal 
or vegetable matter, certain chemical compounds formed 
at the breaking up of previous organized bodies, — the 
varieties are almost innumerable, — chemical compounds 
from the laboratory, simple elements, morbid vital prod- 
ucts produced in the system, all may become a cause. 

Chemical action within the system may multiply and 
produce a cause ; also, certain degrees of temperature, 
not sufficient to cause destruction of tissue, may be a 
cause of disease, even of pneumonia. 

The will or mind, when we take into consideration 
that instinct generates an impulse which sets into activity 
actions both normal and abnormal, and the close relation 
which the will force manifests to the organic force, — it is 
easy to comprehend that its influence may disturb the 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 53 

harmony of instinctive action, and occasion the angered 
mother's milk to be so elaborated that the compound be- 
comes a poison to the child, that is, the milk is so per- 
verted in its organization that the vital powers of the 
child cannot digest and assimilate it. 

Through this source of mental modification of the 
various organic forces, very much good or evil may accrue 
to the patient;, and the importance of this adjuvant to 
success deserves much attention. 

In brief, whatever material that is developed or brought 
within the limits of organic life, so as to be recognized 
by the instinctive organic sense termed sensation, if not 
usable for physiological purposes, may, either from quan- 
tity or kind, become a cause for a disturbed vital action, 
denominated disease. This constitutes, briefly, the na- 
ture, principle, and cause of disease in general. 

The order of this disturbed or pathological action 
forms the basis for name and nosology, or the classifica- 
tion of disease. 

To illustrate the contrast between a theoretical basis 
which explains disease on a one power theory, or the 
two power theory, I quote the following from a writer of 
some distinction : " Scientific men, laboring in the field 
of medical chemistry, should strive to study the proper- 
ties and habits of this proximate principle of disease, 
basing their application upon the simple and harmonious 
law of the correlation of. forces." 

This is a fair sample of those expressions made by the 
two poiver philosopher in urging some one to solve the 
riddle, disease. This expression seems to be a plunge in 
the dark to grasp a principle the whereabouts of which 



54 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

is unknown as to what family of philosophy it is kin. 
" Correlation of forces," which implies two forces, is 
what medical men have been studying for centuries, but 
have never met with any success. 

A laborer in the field of chemistry is not so well qual- 
ified to solve this problem as one laboring in the field 
of physiology. Disease has no " habits or properties/' 
but vital force has both, and disease is one of the 
sequences of its manifestations under certain circum- 
stances. 

In any other department mankind would become dis- 
couraged, and cease to apply those same principles to 
explain a phenomena which has so universally been at- 
tended with failure, and would try a different code. Cus- 
tom alone keeps them in this channel. 

THEORY OF INFLAMMATION. 

Among the simple causes of inflammation may be men- 
tioned a mechanical injury ; effete or foreign matter re- 
tarded in the process of circulation in the more dense 
tissues of the joints ; extreme degrees of temperature, 
either hot or cold ; in brief, some condition or contact 
with the nerves of sensation, which occasions a very un- 
like sensation from the normal one. Inflammatory action 
must always be preceded by an abnormal sensation. All 
abnormal sensations are not followed by inflammatory ac- 
tion, but inflammatory action is never established without 
such a precedence. 

Abnormal sensations must necessarily precede a large 
variety of morbid or pathological actions ; therefore, a 
cause implies only a condition, which may occasion an 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 55 

abnormal sensation by virtue of contact alone ; there is 
no power in the cause. The sensation which precedes 
pathological action may be known to the instinct alone, 
and oftentimes to both the instinct and the intellect. 

The factors of this problem consist, first, of a sensa- 
tion ; second, what the instinct does in relation to such a 
sensation, which is to send an increased volume of blood 
to the part ; thus the surroundings augment heat, full- 
ness, and pain, or increased abnormal sensation. 

Why does the instinct thus behave ? Why not let the 
cause alone ? In some particular instances, perhaps, the 
let alone policy might be preferable, but the ordained 
plan of life consists in the exercise of a selective ability 
of instinct to appropriate and reject material according 
to its usefulness or otherwise ; and this instinctive wisdom 
has the one special faculty of knowing only by sensa- 
tion. 

Thus, the action maintained depends on the sensation. 
Were this sensation and instinct negligent to duty, our 
system would soon fill up and die from an overfullness 
or mechanical impediment. 

Third. If the increased supply of blood, heat, full- 
ness and pain surrounding the part are abnormal, why 
does not this very condition also cause an abnormal sen- 
sation and a new cause for a repetition of the same vital 
action, thus reproducing itself. Such is the fact. 

Granting these premises, when will this kind of action 
cease, and what principle in vital law will explain it ? 
It is explained by the law of toleration, which permits 
certain causes, which primarily occasioned vital disturb- 
ance, to maintain a continued contact without a special 



56 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

vital resistance. Thus, the law of toleration measures 
the duration of some self-limited diseases. 

The extreme of this toleration is partially illustrated 
in the case of some ulcers, where increased action of the 
part, by irritation or heat, becomes necessary to develop 
the healing process. 

PNEUMONIA. 

This disease affords an opportunity to illustrate that a 
sensation, induced by temperature, may become a cause ; 
also, that the disease will continue to run its period of 
self -limit, even when the primary cause has been removed 
early. 

From Aitken's Practice on the Subject of Pneumo- 
nia, I quote: " Of 409 cases, 101 are referred distinctly 
to a chill as a cause. [Chromel, Barth, Grisolle.]" This 
cause does nothing except present a temperature which 
is abnormal, or, in other words, the temperature occasions 
an abnormal sensation to the nerves, which manifest that 
vital property. 

Now, when we have established an abnormal sensation 
to a certain extent, then follows that action, manifesting 
the disease we call pneumonia. We must have the sen- 
sation first, although it may be known to the instinct 
alone. 

With pneumonia, as with simple inflammation, the 
theoretical factors of the problem are the same. First, 
a sensation which may be caused in various ways; for 
instance, poison, produced by previous disease ; steel 
dust or chill, each of which affords an unlike sensation 
to that class of nerves. Where the cause is a chill, the 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 57 

cause is soon removed, but the pneumonia becomes de- 
veloped. How ? The sensation occasions an instinctive 
impulse of blood to the parts, producing heat, congestion, 
and pain, which secondary causes supply a sensation that 
keeps up the inflammatory action, until the law of tolera- 
tion permits a subsidence of activity. 

With this view of the premises, what would be the in- 
ference in regard to treatment ? 

First, we are to consider that the danger in this disease 
is increased both by the amount of structure involved, 
and the great degree of heat developed. The latter is in 
proportion to the severity of the action, but not necessary 
to the amount of structure involved. Death may ensue 
from a large amount of territorial inflammation, or from 
a small amount, if the degree of temperature is sufficient 
to occasion the death of the part. 

A chill being the first cause, is easily removed from our 
consideration ; but it has occasioned a series of secondary 
causes, congestion, heat, and pain, which we must medi- 
cate, with a view to diminish the degree of each cause ; 
thus conducting this self -limited disease through its course 
with less heat and less pain and congestion ; to occasion 
the loss of heat by evaporation, and drinking of ice-water 
if desired, and opiates to diminish the sensation, constitute 
the more primary rational appliances. 

FEVER. 

A fever may be caused by retained excrementitious 
matter, that is an ephemeral fever, so called. The com- 
mon continued fever may be caused by a variety of ma- 
terials from various sources, which have gained access to 



58 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

the human organism ; continued fevers, from a specific 
cause like scarlatina, measles, small-pox, and typhoid, are 
dependent on a specific kind of cause, in relation to which 
the vital powers behave in each individual in a quite sim- 
ilar manner. 

Divesting the particular cause of all power, we are not 
to inquire how a particular poison acts, and what are the 
laws of its action, but simply what is the general and 
special manner of behavior of instinctive vital force under 
certain circumstances. With a view to establish the cor- 
rectness of my theory of only one power involved in 
pathological action or disease, and that a vital one, it 
is unnecessary to mention all the special morbid struc- 
tural changes attending vital disturbance in any par- 
ticular disease, but merely the general characteristics in- 
volved in the particular disease. There is no one par- 
ticular distinguishing system which always enables the 
observer to determine that the given case is a fever, or a 
particular kind of a fever ; but a variety of morbid pro- 
cesses becomes necessary for the applying of the term 
legitimately, also some special symptoms to distinguish 
the kind. The more distinguishing kind of vital dis- 
turbance, which designates continued fever, consists of a 
disturbance of the whole system, in the order of a cold, 
hot, and sweating period, each manifested more or less 
distinctly with different degrees of prominence, each 
period being manifested twice in the twenty-four hours. 

In intermittent fever (fever and ague), those three 
periods are manifested only once each day, and then it 
is called quotidian ; when the paroxysm occurs every 
second day, it is called tertian ; every third day, that is, 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 59 

skipping two days between the attacks, a quartan. Re- 
mittent fever is distinguished from intermittent by an 
indefinite time which is taken to produce the paroxysms 
of the three stages, which may be executed anywhere 
from twelve to thirty hours ; also, the remission or period 
of rest between paroxysms may be from six to thirty-six 
hours, according to the strength of the patient. Relaps- 
ing fevers consist in a manifestation of two paroxysms a 
day, of the cold, hot, and sweating stages, for a period of 
seven to seventeen days (these odd numbers are very 
much like a whim), and then the paroxysms cease for an 
indefinite period of several days to two weeks, and then 
follows a recurrence of the paroxysms, as at first. 

These periods of special activity and rest may be 
continued four or five times. Measles, scarlatina, and 
small-pox have, additional to the continued paroxysm, a 
distinguishing eruption, and the propagation seems due 
to a special or specific cause ; likewise, typhoid fever. 

What do medical authors do with this variety of febrile 
action ? They give us an accurate and valuable account 
of all the symptoms and structural morbid changes, and 
the kind of cause ; followed by a brief recital of the dif- 
ferent kinds of power inherent in the various kinds of 
poisons or cause ; and plunge more or less into the theory 
of the activity of this foreign power, according to their 
enthusiasm, caution, and previous success. In pursuing 
the theory, they soon find themselves swimming in thin 
air, without good anchorage, and paddle back with an 
entire change of countenance, and feelingly express that 
these things are not all settled yet; that medical science 
is still in embryo ; but admonish us to be good ob- 



60 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

servers, watchful and attendant, and treat the case on 
general acknowledged principles. 

It is asserted that we cannot comprehend the laws, and 
much less the principle or workings, of the forces in na- 
ture which relate to our material organism ; but we must 
treat the case on general principles. These general prin- 
ciples constitute the very ideas which we are in pursuit 
of ; and in searching for them I differ from others in 
claiming that they are found in, and belong to, the vital 
force alone, instead of any foreign force or power. 

In the commencement of a fever, we generalty notice 
first an ushering in chill. The chill may be experienced 
by the patient, and at the same time an increased tem- 
perature is indicated by the thermometer ; sooner or later 
an increased determination of blood and an augmented 
temperature is apparent in the skin. 

The language of this instinctive action is an effort to 
effect elimination through the skin. This action is con- 
trolled by instinct, and may overdo its labor ; that is, the 
fullness of the capillaries may close the pores and retard 
the elimination, until a gradual subsidence of this activ- 
ity, when the sweating stage is established ; and as this 
activity of force subsides, the so-called cold stage is ex- 
perienced. 

These alternations of activity and repose of this power 
are repeated twice in twenty-four hours, in continued 
fever, with more or less distinctness and variation of time 
assigned to each stage. The principle involved, is to de- 
terge from the organic system something which does not 
belong there ; and when this order of disturbance exists, 
we call the existing disease some kind of fever. 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. Gl 

All of the other attending 'symptoms are in evidence 
of perverted vital power, important to notice and allevi- 
ate, but not in any manner detracting from the general 
plan of the organic powers to eliminate material not usa- 
ble for physiological purposes. 

INTERMITTENT FEVER. FEVER AND AGUE. 

This fever is, unquestionably, caused by malaria or a 
material which has an origin more particularly in new 
settled lands, and of presumed vegetable origin. After 
residing in such a district a certain period many persons 
become acclimated, which means only the establishment 
of the principle or law of toleration, whereby the cause 
ceases to occasion this special disturbance. The principle 
or theory of vital action is the same, in case only one 
paroxysm of a cold, hot, and sweating period occurs in 
twenty-four hours, or in case it occurs only every second 
or third day. 

Why this variation ? All power has a limit to its ca- 
pabilities, and the continued existence in the presence of 
the cause necessarily implies a continued tax on the 
depurating power ; and when the accumulation of the 
material within the system becomes sufficiently increased, 
a special effort or febrile paroxysm is developed, usually 
of much violence. The degree of activity and the enfee- 
bled powers in this particular manner require more or 
less repose, and the recuperative ability of this power to 
establish another paroxysm, measures the time or day 
when it shall be manifested. 

The enlarged liver and spleen, called ague cakes, so 
common in miasmatic localities, are in consequence of a 



62 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

disturbed vital action, occasioned by the circulation of the 
foreign material through those organs. 

REMITTENT FEVER, 

As before mentioned, is also another variety of vital 
disturbance occurring in the same locality as intermit- 
tent fever, and from the same cause, paludal poison, in- 
volving the same theory, but manifested in paroxysms of 
differently measured time. 

RELAPSING FEVER. 

This fever does not differ essentially from the usual 
manifestations of continued fever ; its peculiarity consists 
in running a certain length of time, when all the parox- 
ysms cease for several days, a week, or more, and then 
commence again and continue for a period, possibly re- 
curring from three to five times. Additional to the fever 
theory there is nothing of importance as theory, except 
the law of either toleration or prostration, manifested in 
this particular disturbance, which affords the vital powers 
a period of rest. 

ERUPTIVE FEVERS. 

Eruptive fevers are not different in theory, although 
their cause is different and of a specific character ; and 
the manner of propagation and general appearances fur- 
nish additional material for study. 

TYPHOID FEVER. 

There is nothing in connection with this fever in oppo- 
sition to the primary principles involved in febrile dis- 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 63 

eases ; although the many attending symptoms and con- 
sequences make this disease a source of much anxiety to 
both physician and friends. The cause is generally con- 
ceded to be of animal origin, although what that mate- 
rial is in the abstract, is not yet determined ; there is 
very much, however, in connection with typhoid fever, of 
importance to learn, which is now involved in mystery. 
It seems that the cause of this disease requires a certain 
period of incubation, prior to its more general effect. 
" The living human body, therefore, is the soil in which 
the specific poison breeds t and multiplies." 

It seems conclusive that whatever the first poison may 
be, its own bulk does not constitute the sum total of the 
material with which the vital powers have to contend ; 
but it affords a primal cause for a series of changes which 
multiply the amount of specific poison within the sys- 
tem. 

Repudiating the idea that we are to study hoiv this 
poison acts, we have legitimately before us to consider 
only its origin ; how it multiplies itself; is it diffused, and 
how ; and how is it communicated ; and the behavior of 
vital force in relation to the cause. 

This department of inquiry is not my special subject, 
although I do not wish to pass it over without expressing 
my immature views, which may call out better and more 
exact information. What may be known of the origin 
of the cause is certainly, at present, mostly conjectural. 
The advocates of the germ theory claim that this poison 
is always generated in the intestines, from a previous germ 
which finds there the proper surroundings for reproducing 
itself. 



64 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

This theory is fatal to itself in this particular applica- 
tion ; because it leaves us without any knowledge how 
the^rs^ germ could have an existence. In this applica- 
tion, germ signifies a primary body, endowed with a 
principle capable of self multiplication or reproduction. 

In distinction from other causes which may occasion 
disease, we. can say with certainty that a germ is not a 
product of chemical force nor a morbid vital product of 
organic action. But should we determine how the poison 
is multiplied it may throw some light on its origin. 

We have evidence to convince us that the cause or 
poison is multiplied within the human system ; and set- 
ting aside the germ cause for the present, we have re- 
maining only two sources through which a multiplication 
of poison can be effected within the human system. 

First, vitiated vital products, from perverted vital ac- 
tion. Second, chemical changes. 

First, it is known that the anger of a nursing mother 
may alter the formation of the milk and change it to a 
poison ; and it is rational to believe that a large variety 
of elaborated fluids acquire an existence through per- 
verted vital action, which, in turn, are a cause of further 
vital perversions ; and in this way a human organism may 
commit suicide. 

It seems consistent to believe that vitiated vital prod- 
ucts afford, at least, a class of secondary causes in many 
diseases which largely occasion the augmentation of irreg- 
ular vital force. 

It is extremely difficult to see how such products could 
be a primary cause of typhoid, or even be the communi- 
cating contagion through which the disease is propagated ; 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. DO 

for like germs, where do we get the first vitiated prod- 
uct ? 

Without any known means of obtaining the first viti- 
ated vital product, I am persuaded to reject, also, the 
vital multiplying agency ; and shall examine the only 
remaining, namely, the chemical, which agency unques- 
tionably, often is the productive power which furnishes 
material cause for vital disturbance. Previous to the 
examination of the multiplying ability of chemical agency 
in this particular disease, it becomes of importance to 
inquire whether typhoid fever is a local disease with a 
general secondary disturbance, or a general disease with a 
special local lesion. 

The germ theorists claim that the primary cause is 
always local and confined to the intestines, therefore 
the disease is local ; and very many of the medical pro- 
fession claim that typhoid fever is a local disease, without 
entering into controversy whether the cause remains 
local or otherwise. 

It seems that if we can prove the primary cause to in- 
habit the intestines only, we have better ground for call- 
ing the disease a local one ; but if we become satisfied 
that the primary, specific cause becomes diffused over the 
whole system, we must accept the disease as one of gen- 
eral character with special local lesions. 

Those who have perseveringly sought to learn the 
manner in which typhoid poison is communicated assure 
us that the swallowing of the virus is the only means 
by which it can be received into the system. Acknowl- 
edging that even one case has been communicated by the 
swallowing of water containing the poison, which premises 



66 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

are, doubtless, acceptable to all, furnishes us a starting- 
point for a tangible theory. Take into consideration that 
this poison in water must either be soluble or insoluble ; 
if insoluble, a microscopic vision only can reveal it. If 
insoluble, and so very diminutive as to require the aid of 
a microscope to discern it, and perhaps not discernible at 
that, it must, certainly, have a very remarkable fixed 
character, as the chemists call it, not to be susceptible of 
solution ; for cohesion and solution are opposing forces in 
chemistry, and whatever weakens cohesion favors solu- 
tion; thus the pulverizing of a substance tends much 
toward its solution. 

If the poison is insoluble, it cannot be absorbed, for 
through the power of solubility only is any substance 
rendered capable of absorption. 

Water is the natural solvent which holds in solution 
all material which goes to supply the wants of the organ- 
ism, as well as all those substances which are circulated 
in contact with nerve tissue, thus becoming the cause of 
vital disturbance. 

Not only would it be remarkable to have such a fixed 
body, but if the poison is insoluble, and was introduced 
into the system by swallowing, .we have the best of 
reasons for adopting the theory that the cause remains 
locally in the intestines. 

Again, if the poison is insoluble, we have to consider 
that it occasions a vital disturbance, either by mechanical 
impediment or as a local irritant. It is certainly not the 
former ; therefore, if the latter, with its local habitation, 
it must necessarily be attended with very severe primary 
local disturbance, before the secondary general febrile 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 67 

paroxysms are developed. The facts, however, in the 
order of the symptoms, are the very opposites. 

Again, if the cause is insoluble, and not absorbable 
and microscopic in its character, and to be largely multi- 
plied in the system, we have before us a material which 
is distressingly incomprehensible to imagine by what law 
peculiar to matter it may be multiplied, and what law 
peculiar to vital properties would make it a rational cause 
for so grave a disease as typhoid fever. The rational in- 
ference would be that such an insoluble, diminutive par- 
ticle would pass along with the contents of the intestines 
and occasion no trouble. 

The testimony elicited in support of the primary cause 
remaining in the intestines is far from satisfactory, and 
good sense dictates that we should abandon the belief of 
its local habitation or insolubility. 

The kind of reasoning usually employed in support of 
the theory that typhoid fever is a local disease, as well as 
the kind of evidence which many physicians accept, "that 
we cannot with positiveness assert that any particular 
case is one of typhoid fever unless a post mortem reveals 
the evidence of local lesion," seems to be based on very 
narrow premises, namely, that if the cause is specific, 
which we all admit, and a local specific effect on Peyer's 
glands and other adjacent tissues is very liable, conse- 
quently, by virtue of the law of specifics (if there is any 
such law in vital behavior), unless the specific effect is 
present the specific cause could not exist, therefore the 
disease was not typhoid fever. A broad view of the 
premises involved, including the laws of vital force, and 
the laws peculiar to matter or the supplying cause of 



68 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

disease, evidently makes it incumbent on us to adopt a 
different plan of reasoning for the solution of this impor- 
tant problem. 

In support of the doctrine that typhoid is a general 
disease, which may be, and often is, complicated with 
local lesion in the region of Peyer's glands, we have 
adopted the premises that the disease may be communi- 
cated by drinking water containing the special poison, 
and it requires no great violation of rational imagination 
to believe that this poison is held in solution ; certainly, 
when we take into consideration that water is the great 
natural solvent, and that the cause, very probably, is of 
vegetable or animal origin ; and what I mean by vege- 
table or animal origin is, that the material cause has been 
previously subjected to the forces peculiar to those two 
kinds of life before it takes on a retrograde condition or 
breaking up which renders it a poison. 

The kinds of matter which are seized by these two 
forces are very far from being liable, while breaking up 
and forming new compounds, to enter into any fixed con- 
dition which is insoluble in water ; consequently, we 
have the best of reasons for believing that the poison is 
held in solution. 

Granting that the poison is soluble, it certainly must 
be absorbable ; and if it is absorbable, the cause is very 
generally distributed over the system, and if thus dis- 
tributed, we have the best of reasons for calling the 
disease a general one which maj^ have local complications. 
In further support we have the continued febrile parox- 
ysms like fevers, the general character of which we never 
question. Also the slow, insidious approach, with tern- 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 69 

perature slowly increased, is in evidence that the cause 
is small ; and, as it becomes multiplied, more severe 
symptoms are manifested in various parts of the organ- 
ism. In consideration of the foregoing premises, I am 
persuaded to adopt the conclusion that typhoid fever is 
a general disease. 

We will now return to the examination of the several 
processes by which the poison may be multiplied, and 
consider the remaining unexamined chemical agency. 
The fertile field for imagination in this department is 
certainly very broad ; but with a knowledge of the kind 
of force which seizes organized material after its vitality 
has surrendered it, we have a plausible outlook for the 
belief that the organic protean compounds, after being 
broken up, pass through a great variety of chemical 
unions, and by stronger affinities are again broken and 
reunited, and thus continue to change in the order of 
dissolution until the material is returned to its elementary 
condition. 

During these series of changes it becomes quite plaus- 
ible to admit that some of those changes might be pro- 
ductive of a specific poison, which material, taken into 
the human system and brought in contact with certain 
living plastic compounds, might occasion the death of the 
particular material, which then enters into chemical 
changes ; or, perhaps, this change may occur with the 
previous disintegrated tissues ; thus the law of chemical 
affinity being supplied with the material for perfecting 
the formation and multiplication of this specific virus 
within the human system. 

There seems to be no doubt relative to the presump- 



70 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

tion that the multiplication of the specific cause of typhoid 
fever does take place within the living, human organism, 
and microscopic examinations fail to furnish us with the 
evidence that it is by an increase of monads, spores, in- 
fusorial animalcules, fungus germs, or bacteria; and after 
a careful examination of all the premises in the case, 
together with the different known means by which any 
such multiplication could be effected with the material 
organism, we are persuaded, after ruling out various ne- 
gations, to adopt the most rational remaining basis, that 
the multiplication of this specific virus is effected by 

CHEMICAL AGENCY. 

It is very difficult to avoid this conclusion ; also 
that the material is soluble and absorbable and diffused 
throughout the entire system, and that the disease is gen- 
eral in its character. Whether the poison is first ab- 
sorbed by the veins or the lacteals, or both ; or whether 
this change is effected with disintegrated tissue or living 
material is surrendered by its vitality and enters into 
new relations ; or whether the constituents of the blood 
become changed, or the blood is only the vehicle for 
transporting the poison as an additional material to the 
blood proper, are questions of a secondary importance, 
and, perhaps, difficult to determine. It is very practical 
to ask, How is typhoid fever communicated? 

The supporters of the germ theory and many of the 
advocates of the doctrine of local disease, have demon- 
strated, beyond a doubt, that the disease is most fre- 
quently communicated by the discharges from the bow- 
els ; also, they represent that the blood of the typhoid 
fever patient, injected into the blood of animals, does 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 71 

not cause typhoid fever, but may cause death ; there- 
fore, take into consideration, in this statement, that this 
class of reasoners are very reluctant to call any case one 
of typhoid fever unless the local lesion is present. 

Whether the poison is in a condition to be communi- 
cated otherwise than through the dejections and by swal- 
lowing, is a question I shall not attempt to discuss, 
although it is very important and of great practical 
value. 

The poison being soluble, the vapors may contain it, 
and, by respiration, it would be possible to unite with the 
fluids of the fauces and be swallowed. We are credibly 
informed that the physicians in the typhoid wards of some 
European hospitals are so firm in the belief that the poi- 
son cannot be communicated except by swallowing, that 
they never swallow while in those wards, and rinse the 
fauces thoroughly after their exit, and are expected to 
escape the disease. 

It is not to be supposed that all of the causes of vital 
disturbance are essentially the specific virus, for there is 
always a class of secondary causes in every fever which 
occasion variously modified activities. The fact that 
there is no necessary connection between the intensity 
of the febrile action and the extent of intestinal mis- 
chief is in corroboration of the increase of poison, inde- 
pendent of vital action. That it may be absorbed and 
carried in contact with nerve tissue, thus modifying the 
generated nerve force which controls the circulation in 
the region of local lesions, even to that extent which un- 
fits the nerve force for maintaining the nutrient supply 
for its structural support, whereby, sooner or later, par- 



72 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

tial or complete perforation is effected from atrophy. 
This is consistent with the belief that the poison is cir- 
culated in the blood, and not inconsistent with any other 
fact or law of vital activity. The local lesions are gen- 
erally considered the evidence of the presence of a pri- 
mary specific poison ; therefore, we may ask whether the 
specific cause or the secondary cause occasions the inter- 
ruption of that nerve force which so frequently termin- 
ates in complete atrophy or perforation. If we attribute 
it to the secondary causes, we are making such cause the 
specific instead of the primary; and, again, how do we 
account for the rose-colored spots on the abdomen, which 
are regarded as pathognomonic of typhoid, if the specific 
poison is not in the blood ? These spots are also evi- 
dence of innervation from causes which can affect that 
region only by circulation, very rarely appearing before 
the end of the first week. 

The gland of Peyer is not all of the structure in- 
volved in local lesions in that immediate vicinity, but is 
more liable to be thus affected because a gland is a more 
highly endowed structure, and will experience less per- 
version of disturbed action and maintain its structural 
organization than other kinds of tissue. 

The manner in which vital force behaves in relation to 
this specific poison, implies the characteristic appearances 
manifest in this particular disease, which disturbance is 
always quite similar, and affords the evidence of the 
specific cause. 

Observation alone does not constitute all of our avail- 
able means for acquiring a better knowledge of typhoid 
fever ; but much must be effected through processes of 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 73 

inductive reasoning ; a knowledge of certain laws enables 
us to draw a better inference in regard to what we ob- 
serve, and law may determine facts which would other- 
wise be difficult to discover. Thus, mathematical calcu- 
lation, based on a known law, made it very probable 
that an undiscovered planet existed in a certain position 
in the heavens, and through the guidance of this law the 
telescope was pointed in that direction, and the human 
eye, for the first time, saw the disc of Neptune. 

The foregoing premises seem to furnish plausible evi- 
dence that the agency which multiplies the specific poi- 
son within the human organism is a chemical one ; there- 
fore the same agency outside of the body, in drains and 
cess-pools, may unite the elements of organic compounds 
which are breaking up under certain circumstances, and 
originate the specific poison. 

The facts that this poison is so frequently communi- 
cated from faecal matter and that swallowing will com- 
municate the disease, are of great value ; yet we consider 
that it is not proved that such is always the manner by 
which the disease is communicated, although it may be 
possible. Should it be proved that the poison must find 
ingress by swallowing, it will be a fact of great practical 
value. 

TEMPERATURE. 

All causes in acute disease occasion an amount of vital 
disturbance, all things being equal, in accordance with 
the degree of morbid sensation which they produce, in 
contact with the nerves which express that special, vital 
property. Therefore an increased temperature of the 
blood becomes a secondary cause of no small importance, 



74 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

and, in all acute disease, an increased temperature occa- 
sions an increased disturbance of the vital energies. The 
degree of temperature alone, when augmented to a cer- 
tain extent, perverts vital action in such a manner as to 
cause death. Some organisms will endure more heat 
than others, but early anticipated danger is in no man- 
ner so correctly foretold as by the temperature indicated 
by the thermometer. 

Experience has taught many practitioners that in all 
febrile diseases, particularly scarlatina, measles, and ty- 
phoid fever, the severity and danger are much less when 
especial early attention has been given to keeping the 
temperature reduced by baths or the wet sheet pack, 
which is always available. One reason for the better 
success is due to diminishing the cause, and a very im- 
portant duty is also aided by this treatment in effecting 
the depuration of effete matter and the increased accu- 
mulation from interstitial change, allowing it to escape 
more rapidly through those emunctaries, which are less 
liable to be further disturbed by its egress. 

The many morbid vital products and phenomena, dan- 
gerously increased by this secondary cause, temperature, 
are too numerous to mention, and if there is one consid- 
eration in the treatment of acute disease, more important 
than any other, it is the diminishing of the temperature. 
Envelop the patient several times a day in a wet sheet 
pack, for twenty to forty minutes, in a temperature 
not cold but agreeable to the patient. The thermometer 
only should be a test of necessity or success, and atten- 
tion early in scarlatina is of paramount importance. 
Many cases, that otherwise would be fatal, may be cured 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEOKY OF VITALITY. 75 

by the continued diminished temperature. This is strong 
language, but the premises on which it is predicated 
vouch most emphatically for its correctness. 

CONSTITUTIONAL OR CACHECTIC DISEASE. 

There is a large class of maladies pertaining to the class 
of cachectic disease which are only very remotely involved 
in the principles more particularly the subject of this 
volume. To pass them by unnoticed would be equiva- 
lent in the judgment of some as recognizing in such, 
nothing antagonistic to the principles advocated ; conse- 
quently, a reference thereto is more to assign a position 
than otherwise, although they occupy no small attention 
of the physician and make up a large share of the chronic 
affections with which we have to deal. 

They are of more than minor importance, and the par- 
ticular thought to be associated with them, is so unlike 
what we have been considering, that a special position 
must be afforded them, that they may not be confounded 
in association, or treated on the principles of more acute 
diseases. 

" This class of diseases is preeminently distinguished as 
being caused by or attended with universal depravity of 
the organization, or general derangement of all the bodily 
functions, constituting, in fact, constitutional taint or mal- 
conformation which may be transmitted through many 
generations, with either increasing or decreasing inten- 
sity, as the voluntary habits of each successive genera- 
tion are more or less in conformity with physiological 
laws." 

What this " constitutional taint " may be, is a theme 



76 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

for much inquiry ; and, doubtless, most of us are easily 
persuaded that our ability to grasp the idea, is much less 
than we would desire. 

Two persons of different families, reared under the 
same apparent influences, live in the same house, eat at 
the same table, breathe the same atmosphere, are ex- 
posed to the same vicissitudes, and have no unlike sur- 
roundings which give evidence to our senses of a mate- 
rial cause; yet one becomes vigorous and hardy, while 
the other goes into a state of decline and death from 
constitutional taint. 

Under the head of cachectic diseases, it seems that we 
should look for a cause outside of a material one. In 
acute diseases we have been considering the laws of per- 
verted vital action, occasioned by causes introduced from 
without, and change of material engendered within ; but 
with cachectic diseases we are to consider a perversion of 
vital force, which, when supplied with good material and 
favorably surrounded, yet makes a bad use of it, perhaps 
develops a cancer or tubercle. In cachectic diseases, the 
vital force seems to use good material improperly, the 
elaborating influences or executive harmony is unbal- 
anced. In acute disease, we have to consider a perver- 
sion of vital power, after it has fulfilled the duty of 
organization ; with cachexia we are to consider the per- 
version of vital power, ivhile performing the act of organ- 
ization. 

With this distinction between the fundamental prin- 
ciple involved in the two classes of disease, it is very easy 
to comprehend that we have a different class of duties to 
attend to, both in our philosophy and in our therapeutics. 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 77 

This perversion of vital force during the process of organ- 
ization is not alone confined to the human species, and- 
animal kingdom, but is noticeable in the vegetable, in 
many of the grass tribe, and particularly in wheat and 
rye. The vital force in harmony with the laws peculiar 
to its designs, develops the perfect kernel of rye ; this 
same force, perverted, develops the kernel of ergot in the 
place of the grain. 

We are informed by the United States Dispensatory, 
that a " microscopic fungus has an existence independent 
of the morbid grain, growing entirely separate from it on 
various parts of the plant, also upon the surface of the 
ergot ; and if this sporidia or white dust be applied to 
seeds before germination, or sprinkled in the soil at the 
roots of the plants, after they have begun to grow, it 
will give rise to ergotized fruit." 

How many generations we can trace a cause of per- 
verted force, to a material which is itself the product of a 
previous perversion, is difficult to determine. Ergot oc- 
casions a perversion of vital force in the human organism, 
although we use it in a manner to make it available ; yet, 
if too much of the cause [ergot] be used, this perversion 
results in dry gangrene. To return to cachectic disease. 
We are to consider that a material cause alone is not re- 
sponsible for the development of this class of disease ; such 
may hasten their appearance and termination, but we 
must look more remotely to an impress, if we may use 
the term, stamped on the tendency of the power. 

This condition of inherited primal tendency, considered 
in a certain sense illustrative of the idea, may be repre- 
sented as an individual without the capital stock of vital- 



78 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

ity sufficient to contend equally with others in the race 
of life. They are compelled to more strictly conform to 
the straight and obedient requirements of physiological 
law. 

They cannot endure those exposures which many of us 
do with apparent impunity. They are the living repre- 
sentatives of the truth, that obedience to law means life. 
Their slight (as it often is) violation of law is not the 
whole cause of decline ; it is only the proximate, while 
the remote is the constitutional tendency. 

There is much, very much, to consider about this class 
of maladies, although it is not my purpose to enter into 
such details ; but a brief mention, of the indications for 
treatment may not be out of place. 

One fact about this class of disease is an inability to 
use proper material properly ; or, in other words, the 
sj^stem does not seem to appropriate the same amount of 
material from the same bulk, which a better endowed or- 
ganization would accomplish ; they require special feed- 
ing as well as a special regard to other laws. This special 
feeding and obedience to law constitutes the primal and 
very important part of the treatment. 

Medication is a secondary appliance, useful to a degree ; 
but remember, it is secondary. This distinction, I fear, 
is not always observed with the profession ; and the doc- 
trinal error, of medical power, has afforded ample oppor- 
tunity for the development of quackery, and the supply 
to the patient of this power in bottles, to be substituted 
for vital power, in which the patient is most significantly 
deficient. 

One reason may be assigned why the system does not 



THE APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF VITALITY. 79 

use more of the material supplied, — from a lack of ability 
to elaborate those fluids which aid in the various processes 
of digestion ;' consequently, we are to supply, not only the 
special food, but the special aid embodied in certain 
preparations which assist digestion. 

Stimulants and tonics only indirectly aid such proc- 
esses, never by assisting directly ; but sometimes occa- 
sioning what there may be of vital power to be more 
generously manifested in a certain direction. 

This kind of assistance is very liable to be overdone. In 
administering a supply to this class of disease, there should 
be kept in view the difference between a compound which 
is a product of vital organization and one which is a prod- 
uct of chemical agency. Vital force cannot appropriate 
ultimate elements or chemical compounds and convert 
them into tissue. The doctrine of chemical food is sup- 
ported by many who believe in it, and who urge its ad- 
ministration, but there are good reasons in abundance to 
prove it a delusion. Such preparations may prove bene- 
ficial as medicine, but not as a food. 

The use of ferruginous preparations affords the most 
convincing evidence of chemical food : although of great 
utility, such are not food, as will be hereafter noticed. 



CHAPTER V. 
MATERIA MEDICA. 

Every science necessitates the coining of special terms 
to express those principles to be represented in each de- 
partment ; and the science of medicine, as taught, with 
its required Materia Medica, has sought to express prin- 
ciples pertaining to medicine in harmony with its sup- 
posed properties. 

Medical science is based on certain presumed funda- 
mental principles, among which is an adopted one that 
medicine has an active principle ; that it is endowed with 
an inherent principle or power which can execute, by 
virtue of its own inherent ability, a momentum to vital- 
ize tissues. This belief has become a constituent of the 
sum total of intellectual acquirements which make up a 
medical education ; it is the idea talked and taught, and 
on which very much of the practice is predicated. 

This idea to-day is as much a part of the man himself 
as the belief in a Christian religion ; it fills an otherwise 
void in that chain of thought which he presupposes makes 
him a useful member of society ; and so firmly is this 
belief stamped into his being, that all philosophy, medical 
and metaphysical, is made to bow and bend to this pre- 
sumed principle. It gets out of the way for nothing ; 
but everything is made to give place to this. 



MATERIA MEDICA. 81 

If the theory of vital force, previously presented, is 
correct, as I claim it to be, the doctrine of an inherent 
power in medicine is a fallacy of no small magnitude. 
There is no compromise in science, and it becomes us to 
determine whether this supposed inherent power in medi- 
cine is a God-given ordained power, or invented by man 
alone to afford a basis for theoretical explanation of 
problems in nature, which ancient man could not other- 
wise surmount. The latter is the whole fact. 

It is an inheritance which we should no longer nourish 
and perpetuate ; consequently, it becomes evident that 
we have terms as well as ideas associated with medicine 
which tend to confuse our thought and pervert our reason- 
ing. 

There being no inherent power in medicine, it becomes 
important to differently express its usefulness, more in 
harmony with its true relations to our organisms. The 
term, " active principle," or " inherent active property 
or power," does not express its relation, for this relation 
is not one of power ; and the term should be expunged 
from our vocabulary. 

It is very easy to discover how such language was 
introduced, when we take into consideration that vital 
power has different waj^s of manifesting itself, which are 
appropriately termed different vital properties, and which 
are expressed by specific names. Consequently, if vital 
power had different properties, it seemed equally appro- 
priate to have the power medical also have properties or 
different ways of manifesting its inherent active principle 
or power. 

The relation of medicine to the human organism being 
6 



82 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

one of cause, not power, its presence occasions vital power 
to behave unlike what it otherwise would. Thus one 
article may occasion emesis, another diuresis, and another 
stimulation ; and instead of using the term, " active prin- 
ciple or medical property," to convey the relation of 
cause and effect, it would be much more appropriate to 
say its medical or medicinal relations caused the special 
effect ; that is, such an article occasions emesis, etc., in- 
stead of saying that the medical power acted to produce 
any special effect. 

In rearranging the plan of medical science, we have 
only to analyze our thoughts to their ultimate condition, 
of primitive ideas ; recognize tne ultimate first principle 
correctly ; refuse to be conducted in the channel of tra- 
ditional thought ; arrange our synthesis, or putting to- 
gether, so that facts and philosophy will blend. We have 
little or nothing to throw away ; the material is all useful, 
but the edifice requires to be partitioned off in a different 
manner. 

There are three grand divisions of material upon and 
with which the vital forces act, as follows : — 

The first class are nutrients, and are acted on for the 
purpose of being assimilated. 

The second class consists of material which is termed 
by the profession inert ; that is, it neither contributes nu- 
triment, nor by its presence occasions any special vital 
disturbance in any direction except by bulk, but merely 
abides the course of time, and becomes eliminated by the 
undisturbed depurative functions. 

The third class comprises that vast array of material 
called medicine and poison, which, by its presence, occa- 
sions special vital efforts or actions. 



MATERIA MEDICA. 83 

The different manner in which vital force behaves in 
relation to this class of material affords that knowledge by 
which we know what use or injury may result from its 
administration. The degree of incompatibility is modi- 
fied by the quantity, and may be mildly alterative, or 
violently poisonous ; thus we are enabled by Sensibility 
to administer such medicines as will occasion the instinc- 
tive power to manifest itself more in harmony with the 
best interest of the patient. Give this plan of recon- 
structed science mature deliberation, inquire through the 
various means within your reach, whether such princi- 
ples are supported and verified by human organisms ; 
the premises are easily approachable, and are briefly in- 
cluded in the idea, whether vital power acts differently 
in relation to different kinds of material, or whether the 
various kinds of inorganic material possess special in- 
herent powers which execute the life functions in the 
highest endowed organism ever created. The key which 
unlocks the door to correct medical science is expressed 
in this sentence. 

ANESTHESIA. 

Those conditions induced by certain articles of the 
Materia Medica, which occasion a suspension of sensation 
and sensibility, are not involved in any principles unlike 
what we have considered. 

A certain quantity of alcoholic stimulus occasions an 
increased activity of the heart, and augments superficial 
circulation. If the quantity is increased to a certain ex- 
tent, the presence of the alcohol renders the organic sys- 
tem unable to manifest the full expression of sensation 
and sensibility. This condition begins with the more 



84 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

voluntary abilities, and tends towards the involuntary : 
if the stimulus is increased sufficiently, there is a complete 
suspension of involuntary activities and death follows. 
Narcotics maintain the same relation ; that is, certain 
quantities in contact with the nerve tissues, incapacitate 
such tissues from the manifestation of their primary legit- 
imate functions ; and we take advantage of such facts, to 
favor certain desired results in the treatment of the sick. 
Ether and chloroform more quickly occasion such con- 
ditions, with less of the intermediate disturbances, in the 
approach or recovery. 



/ 



STIMULANTS. 



Under this head a mention of alcoholic stimulus only 
will be briefly considered, not with a view of doing full 
justice to all of its relations to the people, but /more par- 
ticularly as an article of Materia Medica. Is alcoholic 
stimulus a food — that is, is alcohol transformed into 
vitalized tissues — was a question which not many years 
since puzzled the brain of the physiologist. 

It has been settled positively in the negative, and a 
more complex question succeeded it, namely, Is alcohol 
eliminated from the system as alcohol ? Certain experi- 
ments were made which gave credence to this idea ; but 
later experiments have proved that but a small per cent, 
is eliminated as alcohol, while the remainder is changed 
in the system and eliminated as a different substance. 
We are to consider alcohol more particularly in this place 
as a vehicle which is supposed to convey a power into 
the human system. No one article has been so highly 
endowed by human belief or so generally used by the 



MATERIA MEDICA. 85 

community, for this purpose, as alcoholic stimulus. Our 
texts books have not definitely settled the manner of how 
this power or force is utilized ; whether it contributes 
additional power to muscle, or nerve tissues ; whether it 
runs the machinery of life alone, or jointly with the vital 
force ; whether it executes physiological duties when 
vitality is weary, and after convalescence unselfishly 
takes itself out of the way, and surrenders the executive 
chair to the proper appointed vitality. 

One author informs us u that there are conditions in 
which alcohol acts simply as material for the production 
of force, and may be looked upon as a food which requires 
no digestion, and sets free in a useful form its latent en- 
ergy." 

It is not strange, with this doctrine before the people, 
that intemperance continues to blight the prospects of 
our nation. It is not strange that 'moral suasion, praying, 
and legislation fail to turn the tide of this growing evil. 

Whether alcohol is a food or is possessed of a power, is 
not determined by experiment and observation ; the same 
kind of experiment and observation would make arsenic 
and antimony a food and give them a power as well as 
alcohol. We have mentioned in a foregoing chapter, the 
general law and processes through which material must be 
organized and the condition in which it must remain, in 
order to be susceptible of assimilation. 

Alcohol is a chemical compound, and occasions certain 
special manifestations of vital force, which have been 
mistaken for the " latent agencies " of the alcohol. 

Pleasurable feelings or sensations, and happiness of 
mind, are the result of normal activities, of a balanced 



86 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

functional action. Thus when a small quantity of stimu- 
lus is introduced into the system, it occasions an aug- 
mented and but slightly unbalanced vital activity, which 
promotes, with many, a sensation which is agreeable ; the 
departure from normal activity not being sufficient to 
cause any unpleasantness. This sensation is called the 
nervine action of the alcohol ; it should be called the ex- 
hilarative effect, instead of the action. Increase the 
quantity and the change of action is more apparent, the 
circulating system is implicated, the nerve exhilaration 
is less proportionally manifested ; the heart's action is 
more frequent ; more fullness to the pulse ; increased 
capillary circulation, and heat to the surface. This is 
the stimulant effect. No power is added to vital power, 
or substituted for it it ; nor any " latent energy set free." 
It is merely an illustration of how vital power behaves 
in relation to the material alcohol. 

The degree of excitability in different nervous systems 
is absolutely independent of the amount of nervous force 
in the individual. 

Stimulation is not an increase of the sum total of vital 
power which the individual may possess, but is an in- 
crease of vital power in a certain direction ; the manifes- 
tation is one of expenditure of the stock on hand ; yet it 
is of paramount importance that it should be thus mani- 
fested in certain cases, and thus it becomes the means of 
saving life. 

This statement may seem paradoxical : to claim that 
the manifestation is an expenditure, and yet is often the 
means of saving life. For the purpose of illustration, we 
will introduce a fever patient suffering from prostration ; 



MATERIA MEDICA. 87 

the condition of the patient is one of internal congestion, 
with a superficial deficiency of blood and coldness ; the 
functions of life cannot be continued long, if this state of 
unbalanced circulation is permitted to remain. We have 
previously ascertained that alcoholic stimulus occasions an 
increased activity of the heart, and augments the superfi- 
cial circulation. 

Thus the system will endure this expenditure of vital 
power, with a more nearly balanced circulation, far bet- 
ter than it can endure the internal congestion, and defi- 
ciency of capillary circulation. The unbalanced circula- 
tion tends directly to death, and the restoration of the 
balance gives the patient another chance in the struggle 
for life. This waste of vital power, in this particular 
direction, is a choice of evils. Stimulants will not occasion 
the rallying of the life powers when the attending col- 
lapse is due to exhaustion, it is only applicable benefi- 
cially in prostration. 

In relation to the use of alcohol for medicinal purposes, 
a certain eminent professor of Materia Medica (who be- 
lieves in the inherent power) says : " It is well to do so 
for temporary use, for which you will feel better ; but, if 
continued, ends in worse ; the system soon goes into a 
rapid decline. It is like taking the material of a house 
to stop the leak ; it will do for temporary emergency, but 
soon the house becomes worse by patching than if let 
alone, and perhaps past all value — not possible to mend." 
This deduction is the result of observation, in opposition 
to the belief of an inherent power, but strictly in har- 
mony with the theory that alcohol contains no power. 
Some medical philosophers reason about the same prem- 



88 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

ises from two different standpoints, and I will quote from 
one of those philosophers, a little theory on the basis of 
vital force. Says Dr. Brown-Sequard, " Now that we 
have passed in review all those facts showing that riervous 
force can be transformed into the other forces of nature 
that we know, almost all of them, the question arises, 
Can all the forces of nature be transformed into nervous 
force? This is one of the greatest questions that we 
could undertake to consider. Unfortunately, the elements 
we have for solving it are as yet very few. We do not 
know positively yet — at any rate, I do not." 

Thus it seems that even if medicine has a power, or 
force, inherent in itself, the question is unsolved in his mind 
whether such force can be transformed in^o nerve force. 
His opinion is of value. He is a thinker of high order. 

No one article of the Materia Medica is so generally 
used, without the aid of a physician, as alcoholic stimulus; 
and the importance of a correct understanding of this one 
article by the people is beyond human ability to estimate. 
Intelligent humanity do not run into depravity willingly, 
with their eyes open ; they are, too frequently, the vic- 
tims of intellectual blindness — more to be pitied than 
despised. It is easy to comprehend the powerful influ- 
ence of education, involved in urging onward the practice 
of stimulation, in the belief that our jaded powers can 
receive new accessions of power from alcoholic stimulus. 

It is plain that the best applied remedy for intemper- 
ance consists in correcting our intellectual influences ; 
here is the basis for the strongest appeal that ever moved 
the impulses of a nation, impressing a conviction of duty 
superior to all other means ever brought to bear on this 
question. 



MATERIA MEDICA. 89 

Intellect rules the world ; not tyranny. Ideas give 
direction to national and individual customs ; and this 
doctrine of power, or the opposite, in alcoholic mixtures, 
is significant, for good or for evil, in accordance with the 
belief of the people. 

FERRI. IRON. 

In conformity with the provisions of a certain law, the 
ultimate elements must be carried though a vegetable 
process previous to being assimilated ; but the law is 
very generally waived in opinion, in relation to the sub- 
ject of iron. We are taught by our standard books, and 
from the chair professional, that chemically prepared 
compounds of iron are food. How shall we solve this 
seeming contradiction ? It is unquestioned that iron is 
an important and natural constituent of the blood, for it 
enters into the formation of a certain organized body in 
the blood. Also, in anaemic or bloodless patients, the 
administration of iron chemically prepared seems, and in 
fact does, occasion an augmented supply of blood, often 
followed by a restoration of health to the patient. 

Putting these two facts together, it is not difficult to 
persuade ourselves that the mentioned law does not prove 
true in relation to iron, which seems to be assimilated by 
the vital powers as it comes from the hand of the chemist. 

With this encouraging precedent of belief in assimila- 
tion, various other seemingly required elements of the 
human organism are offered to the vital powers in a form 
given by the chemist, with a view to assimilation. 

Small primary errors lead us onward to the committal 
of a practice which is supported by certain theories and 



90 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

contraindicated and contradicted by other theories; there- 
fore, starting off with the theory that elements from the 
hands of the chemist can be assimilated, how far can we 
proceed before we find ourselves entangled in a manner 
which seems both consistent and inconsistent. 

How far is this law waived in relation to such assimila- 
tion ? Does it include iron only, or where does it stop ? 
It must stop somewhere, or we shall be drawing our 
nourishment from chemical compounds instead of vege- 
table productions. 

I trust the reader can see where this theory of the as- 
similation of chemical compounds will lead us in practice, 
and it becomes us to pause, and inquire if we have not 
been persuaded by theory to an errbneous practice in this 
direction, with chemical compounds. 

The law which determines whether a substance is food 
or otherwise, has been alluded to, and in support of this 
applied law we all comprehend that the material sub- 
stance required to be vitalized, to become a part of the 
human structure proper, must become fixed (as the 
chemists say) in that compound of living humanity, and 
perform the functions of its purpose, and be disintegrated 
after the manner of worn-out tissues; otherwise it has 
not been food to that organization into whose system it 
has been introduced, absorbed, and expelled. 

A certain substance may fulfill a very important re- 
quirement in our organic system as a medicine ; for in- 
stance, the acid contents of the intestines, in some cases 
of diarrhoea, may cause irritation and further continuance 
of the disease, and by a free use of alkalies the acidity 
is neutralized, and the disease cured. Alkalies, thus 



MATERIA MEDICA. 91 

introduced, are not food, nor assimilated, although ab- 
sorption and elimination takes place ; and yet soda is a 
constituent element of the human organization. Not 
long since, an article appeared in a medical journal, 
which theorized that alkalies were food under such cir- 
cumstances. 

Certain elements in food are natural constituents of 
the human organism, and, in order to be assimilated, 
must be presented in that form which vegetation has 
modified ; and iron is one of those elements which vege- 
tative power lifts up, as it were, to a condition which 
renders it susceptible of assimilation by the vital proc- 
esses of animal life. 

The average amount of iron in the human system is 
about thirty-one grains, and it can be traced no further 
in organization than a constituent of the blood corpus- 
cles. A corpuscle minus its iron is of little or no use, 
and can scarcely be said to be a corpuscle. The func- 
tion fulfilled by the iron in the corpuscles seems to be 
that of an oxygen carrier. The iron of the corpuscle 
absorbs oxygen from the atmospheric air in the lungs, 
and returns to the heart and general capillary circulation 
as a peroxide of iron (that is, the largest amount pos- 
sible to carry), and yields it up for a certain purpose, 
and then returns to the heart and lungs as a protoxide 
of iron, and again takes another supply, and thus con- 
tinues to repeat the operation ad infinitum. 

How long the same iron will continue to fulfill this 
function has never been determined, although it is very 
evident that it does fulfill this function for a long period, 
without any sensible appreciation or diminution, or known 



92 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

supply through the food, although, perhaps, our means 
of detecting iron in food are not so positive as of other 
substances. It is evident that iron thus obtained is food, 
but this is not evidence that iron from the hands of the 
chemist is food, although it may be useful and indispen- 
sable. Soluble iron is readily absorbed by the stomach 
when acid is present, furnished by the gastric secretion, 
although only in very small quantities, and unites with 
the red globules or corpuscles of the blood, and exists 
as free iron, but is not assimilated, and is soon eliminated 
by the kidneys. Iron thus introduced fulfills a tempo- 
rary use in the corpuscle, and is soon eliminated, and its 
continued use must be maintained in order to restore 
those conditions which a proper quantity only, can main- 
tain. 

If the iron thus supplied becomes food, if it is assim- 
ilated as is iron from the vegetative supply, it would not 
be necessary to continue its prolonged use ; and the very 
fact that it must be thus continued is evidence that it 
is not fixed by assimilation, but subserves only a tem- 
porary use of much less duration than when otherwise 
supplied. 

A certain proportion of red corpuscles in the blood be- 
come as necessary for the continuance of health as the 
relative proportion of atmospheric air to the required 
wants of respiration ; and, with a certain class of anaemic 
patients, the relative proportion of red corpuscles is 
lacking only from a want of iron [that is not true with 
all cases], and the iron thus artificially supplied subserves 
the temporary purpose of increasing the supply of red 
corpuscles in a given quantity of the blood, sometimes 



MATERIA MEDICA. 93 

from forty to one hundred and sixty. In this manner 
only is iron subservient to convalescence ; it favors the 
augmentation of the corpuscles, which, in fulfillment of 
this function, carry the requisite amount of oxygen. 

Supposing we have under treatment one of those cases 
of anaemia, requiring more blood from increased corpus- 
cle, and more corpuscles from a supply of iron, and the 
theory as here advocated is true, how are we to account 
for that time coming when we can discontinue the use 
of iron with this patient ? 

If the iron thus supplied is only temporary, and is 
soon eliminated, how are we to explain the permanency 
of the relative proportion of red corpuscles after artificial 
iron is eliminated ? It may be proper to illustrate this 
by approximate analogy. In the case of a dyspeptic, a 
proper amount and kind of food is supplied, but the 
amount of the elaborated digestive fluids are not sufficient 
to enable the execution or perfection of assimilation. Thus 
the system suffers from the want of nourishment, although 
the material is present which furnishes it. The artificial 
use of pepsine, pancreatine, and lacto-peptine, assists di- 
gestion and admits of a larger quantity of food being as- 
similated, which, in fulfillment of its required use, aug- 
ments the supply of these digestive fluids, and, sooner or 
later, those processes are self-sustaining and supplying. 

In the supply of iron, something analogous to this 
seems rational ; the anaemic patient has not the ability to 
assimilate the iron from the vegetable food ; the organic 
power cannot reinstate or fix the proper supply from the 
nutritive source , consequently, the artificial supply for 
temporary use increases the number of the corpuscles, and 



94 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

quantity of blood, for the time, through which the harmo- 
nious action of vital ability, sooner or later, becomes self- 
sustaining. 

The red corpuscle is formed by differentiation, or process 
of development, through the agency of the lymphatics ; 
thus the lymph corpuscle eventually becomes the red cor- 
puscle of the blood ; and through some defective ability, 
perhaps not within our limits of comprehension, the cor- 
puscle is imperfectly elaborated, the iron is not present, 
or not fixed, in accordance with assimilation, and a defi- 
ciency in the blood constitutes anaemia. The absorption 
of the iron chemically prepared, fulfills the completion of 
the elaborated corpuscle to the extent of temporary use- 
fulness only ; therefore the iron is not assimilated, conse- 
quently is not food ; yet it is absorbed, and fulfills the 
temporary use of an oxygen carrier, and is eliminated as 
free iron, not as disintegrated tissue. 

PHOSPHORUS. 

The doctrine that iron is food, and is assimilated from 
those preparations in medicinal use, has paved the way 
for a belief in and introduction of phosphorus, not only as 
a medicine, but as a supply to nerve tissue ; and in illus- 
tration of the manner of introducing this substance to the 
profession, allow me to quote from reputed acceptable au- 
thority as follows : — 

" I claim for phosphorus, duly administered and prop- 
erly exhibited — and for this purpose I advocate its em- 
ployment in its elementary form in an absolute state of 
subdivision, and in thoroughly protected pill shape — 
more specific powers in certain and constantly recurring 



MATERIA MEDICA. 95 

maladies than opium, quinine, calomel, or cod-liver oil 
can claim. From personal experience, and from the ex- 
perience of others, I would state that, whereas we can 
readily find substitutes for the remedies above in almost 
any case in which they may be demanded, yet, in no one 
instance, can we supplement phosphorus when it is indi- 
cated. In cases where phosphorus is demanded, where, 
in the extended range of Materia Medica, can we look for 
a remedy which will substitute that potent agent. As 
phosphorus enters largely into the composition of the hu- 
man structure, especially of the nervous system, with its 
great centre, it has long been thought that in case of wear 
and tear of body and brain, phosphorus could be wisely 
administered to repair waste. Certain diets containing 
phosphorus, have for a long time been popular with prac- 
titioners of comprehensive views, and in cases of over 
work, of mental exhaustion, mania, and impotency, have 
acted wonderfully well." 

We are thus instructed that phosphorus from both 
sources becomes food, and also that in the elementary 
state it has specific powers, and in a fish diet acts won- 
derfully well. Vide, " Rrofessor Agassiz laid special stress 
on fish diet where the brain had been tasked and taxed 
beyond its capacity. It is only natural to credit any ben- 
efit derived to the phosphorus element which abounds in 
fish, which element goes to the repair of waste tissue in 
the brain. Taking it for granted that this beneficial re- 
pairing effect is due to phosphorus in the fish diet, the 
question naturally arises, why cannot the exhibition of 
phosphorus itself be resorted to, either in lieu of the fish 
diet, or as a powerful adjunct in connection with it ? 



96 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

Such an addition would most assuredly hasten the cure, 
especially where brain exhaustion is produced." 

There is no mistaking the lack of analysis of thought 
on this subject. 

Vide, " There is one reason why the exhibition of 
phosphorus in certain diseases has not been resorted to 
by physicians. That reason is, fear of the remedy. I 
do inveigh against needless timidity in the use of the 
remedy which, even were it pushed too far, could be ren- 
dered powerless by an emetic dose of tartarized antimony 
and potassa, and a drachm of magnesia suspended in a 
glass of water." 

Allow me to wonder whether the phosphorus remains 
in the alimentary canal, and, like a king on his throne, 
exercises his power. If so, how can it contribute to the 
supply of the brain as a tissue ? If it does so contribute 
to the brain, does the emetic and purgative potver, which 
renders phosphorus " powerless," drive it out of the 
brain ? Or does the antimony and magnesia coax or 
draw it back into said canal and vomit it up or purge it 
down ? This is merely query. Vide, " That phosphorus 
is a speedy and powerful nerve tonic there is ample testi- 
mony, — Dr. Routh, of London, being especially loud in 
its praise. And, in addition to the administration of 
phosphorus, he, along with other directions, is earnest that 
the patient should have a nourishing diet, especially of 
shell fish. Concerning the rationale (explanation) of the 
action of phosphorus, it is but frank and honest on our 
part to say, that as yet, with our present light before us, 
we cannot satisfactorily explain it. ' But,' using the 
words of an eminent authority, ' probably the progress of 



MATERIA MEDICA. 97 

animal chemistry will hereafter supply the missing links 
now wanting to connect the phosphorus taken as a medi- 
cine with the protagon of the brain, and then with the 
phosphates which are finally thrown off by the body.' 

" The popular idea, that as phosphorus is found in the 
nervous structure generally, so a beneficial result may be 
achieved by supplying this same element to the weakened 
structure, will not on a crucial test hold good. For instance, 
we might with equal consistency and reason attempt to 
live on charcoal, because carbon is a constituent of the 
tissues." 

All of these quotations are from the same author ex- 
cept quotations within a quotation ; the author has labored 
hard to persuade us to believe what he afterwards says is 
impossible to be true, namely, that an element as such, 
can be a food. This cannot be, even when it may be- 
come a constituent of our organization subsequent to veg- 
etative organization. When the " crucial test " is made 
the theory does not hold good, yet like the one whom he 
quotes, he thinks animal chemistry will supply the miss- 
ing link which connects the phosphorus as a medicine with 
the protogon of the brain ; but confesses that he does not 
know much about it, which he thinks it " honest to say." 

What is the lesson taught ? We are instructed that 
the element phosphorus is good to supply waste brain ; 
also, that it is impossible to thus supply waste tissue. 
What is the persuasive drift, or tendency, or practical 
action, intended or advised, on this subject of phosphorus, 
by this writer ? In conclusion, we are instructed to prac- 
tice with the expectation of a result, in accordance with 
the former theory, that it does supply the waste tissue of 
7 



98 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

the system ; and the article closes thus : " This paper is 
respectfully laid before the profession in the sole and sin- 
cere hope that phosphorus, such a powerful agent, may 
be assigned a higher and nobler place in therapeutic art, 
than for years it has been holding. I do affirm, from the 
teachings of the best of teachers, experience, that in cer- 
tain affections it is beyond value and without an equal." 

Such dissertations plentifully abound in medical litera- 
ture, in the expounding of science, with the science left 
out. 

In support of such a conclusion, we are not alone asked 
to be persuaded by his theory, but it is due to " the 
best of teachers, experience" that we be convinced of its 
unequaled value. Reference is made to " practitioners of 
comprehensive views," whose experience not only gives 
weight to their convictions, but should, he thinks, entail 
upon us similar belief, who speak highly of phosphorus 
when supplied in a fish diet; and Dr. Routh, of London, 
whose name is mentioned, " is earnest that the patient 
should have a nourishing diet, especially of shell fish." 
Dr. Routh and Agassiz recommend organized phosphorus, 
only ; they have not committed themselves or given any 
support to the doctrine that phosphorus from the hand 
of the chemist is assimilable. 

Such unreasonable contradictory theories and assertions 
are not rare, but very numerous ; yet they do not indicate 
a second-rate brain, for so long as medical men are taught 
and do believe the medical power theory, they cannot 
give expression to their views otherwise than in this con- 
tradictory manner. 

When any subject is explored with a conformity to the 



MATERIA MEDICA. 99 

medical power theory, it is sure to give the lie to the 
physiological and vital theory, and the reverse. We can- 
not believe in both, and be consistent in our philosophy ; 
either the vital theory or the medical power theory must 
be surrendered, for correct explanations of the laws of 
nature are not antagonistic ; and these theories are posi- 
tively in opposition. 

TOXICS. 

Direct tonics are food ; medicinal tonics do not impart to 
the organisms any power, nor add to the sum total of 
vital power ; their use consists in occasioning a change of 
manifestation of vital power, which change is more fav- 
orable to harmonious balanced nutritive accumulation. 

POISOX. 

Poisons belong to the same division of material as 
medicines, the presence of which in the human system 
are very detrimental to harmonious vital action, and will 
occasion a special vital disturbance sufficient to cause 
death. My opponents in theory claim that poisons are 
possessed of so much power as to nearly or quite destroy 
the organism. 

The line of demarkation established by medical power 
theorists, between a medicine and a poison, is one of ac- 
cumulated or inherent power. Thus a small quantity of 
power in a substance allows it to be classified as a 
medicine ; a larger quantity of power, occasions it to be 
called a poison. 

The quantity of a medicine may be increased sufficient 
to occasion toxilogical effects, or a poison may be so di- 
luted, that a small amount may occasion only what is 
termed a medicinal effect. 



100 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

The word " poison " is associated with an idea of power, 
and we have been educated to retain this association for 
centuries ; yet it is false. 

A poison is a substance the presence of which occasions 
such violent disturbance of vital action as to endanger 
and often cause death. 

There is no natural law or dividing line between a 
medicine, as the term is generally used, and a poison, al- 
though practically there is an essential difference in result 
between a medicinal or a poisonous dose. 

FACTS. 

It is well known that those persons who are possessed 
of a hardy, vigorous constitution, capable of enduring 
much beyond the average of the human race, whenever 
they are afflicted with acute disease, are thought to be, 
and they are in fact, more in danger of dying, than those 
of weak and feeble constitutions. Why is this ? 

Does the same cause which makes them sick possess 
more power when taken into their system than it pos- 
sesses when taken into the system of the more enfeebled? 

If the cause of a disease is possessed of a power which 
acts on the human organism, why does this power act so 
violently in strong constitutions ? This one fact alone is 
sufficient to cause the whole medical profession to see the 
error of the assumed power theory in medicine and poison, 
if they were not blinded by this inherited belief. 

Persons afflicted with chronic maladies are less liable 
to acute sickness ; and a previously enfeebled person will 
live through a sickness which is astonishing, if you were 
to believe that the power which perverts those actions 
was inherent in the cause. 



MATERIA MEDICA. 101 

Merely reverse the theory of the source of power, and 
that class of patients are then reasonably presumed to 
avoid death from having less of those vigorous actions 
which destroy special organs or develop high tempera- 
tures ; and it becomes a question of prolonged endurance, 
whether vital power is to become exhausted, and death 
follow; or there is to be a prolonged prostration and 
recovery. 

The vigorous patient seldom dies of exhaustion of vital 
power, but the vigorous action destroys some organ or 
develops a temperature too high for the restoration of a 
balanced nerve influence, which reminds us of the great 
importance of keeping the temperature down in acute 
diseases. 

Surgeons are familiar with some of these facts, not by 
theory alone, but by actual observation, and they are 
made subservient to success in capital operations. The 
probabilities of recovery in ovarian disease are much 
more favorable if the general system begins to wane 
before the tumor is removed. The danger after such an 
operation is often through inflammatory action, and if 
the vital powers are previously enfeebled, this action 
is of less degree. Again, the philosophy of the use of a 
stimulus in such operation is very much involved in that 
fact, that the vital powers are otherwise engaged ; that 
is, the amount of vital energy thus deployed detracts 
from what would, otherwise, be fully manifested ; and it 
is thus deployed in a more diffusable manner with less 
relative local injury. 

This same application can be made to many of those 
cases of rattlesnake poison which recover by the free use 
of a stimulus. 



102 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

The same principle of dividing up vital activity is ex- 
hibited in the use of the blister. 

The more minutely this one power or vital theory is 
applied to the explanation of the varied manifestations of 
disease, and effects of medicine, the more apparent, har- 
monious, and convincing will the theory become ; and it 
will be realized that a science, with a theory which ex- 
plains the laws of those manifestations involved in the 
elements of the science, in its practical workings, is 
worthy of a name much unlike that expressed by Dr. 
John Mason Good, " The language of medical science is 
a barbarous jargon." 

Says Dr. Evans, F. R. C, of London, "The popular 
medical system has neither philosophy nor common sense 
to commend it to confidence." 

I have long maintained a great contempt for our medi- 
cal philosophy, but it is practically wise not to condemn 
a principle without superseding it with a better substi- 
tute. 

SUMMARY. 

Physiological action is vital action in relation to 
usable material. 

Pathological action is vital action in relation to un- 
digestible, effete, and foreign material. 

Medicinal action is a misnomer. Medicinal effect 
expresses the fact without a violation of a principle in 
science. 

Poisonous action is also a misnomer ; it should be 
poisonous effect. 

Physiological experiments with drugs, and physio- 
logical action of drugs : this is a very unscientific and per- 



MATERIA MEDICA. 103 

verted use of languague, and conveys the idea that physi- 
ological functions are executed by the supposed power in 
medicines, instead of vital power. 

Active principle, in medicine, should be called " me- 
dicinal portion." 

Medicinal property is a misnomer ; it should be 
" medicinal relation ; " medicine has no properties except 
physical, such as relate to material in general. 

Reflex action, conveys the idea that there has been 
a previous action, which is not correct ; there has been a 
sensation previous to the action, but sensation is not 
action ; consequently, what is called a reflex action is a 
primary action. The problem is expressed thus: cause, 
sensation — instinctive volition or action. It would more 
nearly approximate the true expression of the principles 
of the science, to substitute the term " reflex operations " 
for "reflex action." 

Sensation pertains to contact, or recognition at insen- 
sible distances. 

Sensibility is a brain function of recognition, regard- 
less of distance. Our sensibility may be aware of the disa- 
greeable sensation of a part, but the part is not possessed 
of acute sensibility. 

Medicine and poison have no associated power inher- 
ent to the substance. 

The cause of disease has no inherent power. All 
power which gives motion to vitalized structures is vital 
power. The greatest error ever perpetrated by the mind 
in relation to the human organism, consists in the doc- 
trine that there are inherent powers in inorganic matter, 
which give motion to, or act on living tissues. 



104 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

The practical science of medicine consists in controlling 
the instinctive organic power by the use of medicine as a 
cause, which occasions this power to manifest itself in ac- 
cordance with the best interest of the individual, when 
properly prescribed. 

A theory of medical science or disease, based on the in- 
terpretation that there is a power in medicine or poison 
which acts on the living human organism in any possible 
manner, is as absurd and contradictory to the laws of sci- 
ence, as the ancient fallacious doctrines, that the earth 
was the centre of the solar system. 

I submit the foregoing premises to the criticisms of an 
intelligent profession, with a full belief that my interpre- 
tation is generally correct ; and trust that, sooner or later, 
the principles here inculcated will be adopted as a guide 
in the practice of medicine, and be indoctrinated from the 
chair professional. 

These principles are important, both for the develop- 
ment of a science, and the protection of the people from 
the national curse, quackery ; thereby inculcating a ra- 
tional belief that none but those schooled in the principles 
of the science, can safely prescribe for the controlling of 
that instinctive vital force which develops and perfects the 
human organisms ; and likewise as involving the greatest 
questions which affect the welfare of a nation. 



PART SECOND. 



DIFFEEENT SYSTEMS OF PRACTICE. 

What has been said relative to the inconsistency of 
medical philosophy in Part First, is directly applicable to 
the regular system of medical philosophy, and those who 
are slow to make an application of a principle to science, 
may infer that some other systems are nearer perfection, 
and better adapted to meet the requirements of human- 
ity, should we neglect to assign them their position in the 
scale of merit. Of the various systems there is nothing 
in particular to engage our attention except homoeopa- 
thy, unlike what belongs to the regular, except that some 
schools prefer to select their medicines from the vegetable 
kingdom, on the plea that they are more sanative and less 
poisonous ; such a pretext is only an expression of credu- 
lity, distinguished by a great lack of knowledge relative 
to the creation of vegetable poisons. In the vegetable 
kingdom are found Hyoscyamus, Conium maculatum, 
Aconite, Belladonna, Strychnia, without mentioning a 
score of lesser ones ; thus the vegetable kingdom far ex- 
cels the mineral in the production of poisons. While 
others claim to have superior abilities in making their 
selections of medicine, and choose only those which have 



106 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

well disposed and peaceable powers, that are always will- 
ing to do good, without any of those malicious inclinations 
to do harm, and that they select from each system all the 
good and reject the bad. This is beautiful in idea, and 
thus it ends. 

HOMCEOPATHY. 

This is the modern intellectual race horse, competing for 
the fame of science. Its founders and promulgators are 
entitled to the credit of an ingenious originality of thought 
which far surpasses in transcendent absurdity anything 
which has ever been submitted for the consideration of an 
intelligent public. They strike out boldly in their text- 
books and literature, by declaring that, " the supremacy 
of medicine is a matter of vast importance ; problems of 
the deepest interest await for solution the development 
of that science." 

With this undisguised acknowledgment that the light 
of science is not sufficiently developed to illuminate those 
" problems of deepest interest," and while very restive 
with this insurmountable barrier or deep chasm between 
their acquired abilities and the open field of science, rich 
in its created blessings, they have seen fit to bridge this 
chasm, which has long kept back and out the human 
mind from those richest treasures ; not that we may pass 
over and up to science,* but that science may come over 
and down to us. 

Not being able to move man up to the science, they 
propose to move the science down to man, take it across 
the chasm, and simplify it to man's understanding, reset 
its profundities with principles of simplicity on a level 
with the diminutive mind, and thus harmonize the science 



DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF PRACTICE. 107 

so " that its principles from their explicitness and sim- 
plicity are better fitted for the popular understanding." 

The special distinction which they covet, separating 
themselves from all other schools of philosophy, consists, 
not in rejecting the belief of an inherent power in drugs, 
but that thispoiver, instead of acting on vitalized structure 
on its own responsibility, has an affinity for vital powers, 
and unites with them in the cooperative duty, or correla- 
tion of force, to execute activities or vital manifestations. 

Before we proceed, let us inquire into the meaning of 
the term "affinity ? ' and acquire a perfect understanding 
of all that the term implies, and its applications in the 
English language. 

This is a pivotal term, a knowledge of which gives in- 
clination to ideas ; its most specific application is ex- 
pressed in Chemical Science, when two different ele- 
ments at insensible distances, like oxygen and hydrogen, 
unite to form water, a compound body, the physical 
character of which is very much unlike either of the sep- 
arate elements ; the law which expresses this possibility 
of union i is called the law of affinity. The term is used 
in social science, to express a similarity of mental senti- 
ment, or conformity ; more particularly as a comparative 
expression. What can affinity mean when applied to the 
Science of Medicine ? Its application is not with the 
thought that medical power and vital power unite and 
form a different power, but is used in a supposed relative 
sense on the baseless supposition that there are a thousand 
or more varieties of vital power, which act specifically on 
particular structures ; also that there are a thousand or 
more varieties of medical powers, which are endowed with 



108 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

specific abilities to act on the same particular structure ; 
therefore, the kind of medical power which they say was 
intended to act on any particular structure, is said to have 
an affinity for the vital power which was ordained to take 
charge of this particular part ; thus, the two powers go 
into partnership and act similia similibus, constituting 
the invention which they call affinity or law of specifics. 
This is the principle whose " explicitness is simplified 
and fitted for the popular understanding," and is the most 
gigantic error -of "modern intellectual man. This school 
claims that the more a medicine is diluted, the greater 
are its curative powers. And the practitioner of this 
simplified science is required to prescribe by the law of 
affinity and administer the specific medicine, which affili- 
ates with the particular vital power involved in the 
trouble ; which prescriptions are illustrated by the table 
of remedies for toothache, copied from the " Homoeopathic 
Practice of Medicine " by Dr. M. Freligh, visiting Phy- 
sician to the New York Homoeopathic Dispensary Asso- 
ciation, and member of the Hahnemann Academy of Med- 
icine. 

Pages 170, 171. 

For toothache, especially from cold Aconite. 

For violent tearing in the teeth of the lower jaw . Agaricus. 
For dull drawing in the upper and right row of teeth all 

night Belladonna. 

For toothache caused by either hot or cold things . . . 

Calcarea- Carb. 
For toothache aggravated by warm drinks . . . Cham. 

For throbbing toothache China. 

For jerking toothache Hepar-Sulph. 



DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF PRACTICE. 109 

For toothache only when eating Kali-Garb. 

For lacerating, tearing toothache (Rattle-snake Virus) . . 

Lachesis. 

For toothache only at night Mercurius. 

For toothache occurring after dinner . . . Nux Vomica- 
For toothache with swelling of the cheek . . Phosphorus. 
For toothache aggravated by taking anything warm into the 

mouth Pulsatilla. 

For drawing toothache extending to the ear . . . Sepia. 
For throbbing, lacerating toothache aggravated by cold 

water Spigelia. 

For toothache caused by draft of air Sulphur. 

For toothache during pregnancy Sepia. 

For toothache relieved by cold drinks . Bryonia, Pulsatilla. 
For toothache relieved by warm drinks . Lycopod, Sulph. 

For toothache relieved by smoking Mercury. 

For toothache aggravated by smoking . Ignatia, Bryonia. 
For toothache relieved by warmth . Merc, Nox Vom., Sulph. 

The professors say the simplicity of this science, " is 
its best eulogy, for enlightened adoption by all classes in 
nearly all parts of the civilized world." I also quote 
from the revised edition of " Medical Philosophy," 1875, 
by D. A. Gorton, M. D., an able expounder of Homoeopa- 
thy, and a shining light, page 28: " It is well known that 
particular drugs produce specific psychical effects, either 
virtuous or vicious, morally strengthening or depressing, 
by virtue of the selective affinity which they possess, for 
particular parts of the brain or nervous centres — and 
they thus have the power to modify the functions of the 
part acted upon. Who among close observers of medici- 
nal actions does not know the efficacy of Sulphur in obsti- 



110 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

nate contumacy ; of Chamomile in a fretful, peevish dis- 
position ; of Belladonna in certain forms of " temper dis- 
ease ; " of Anacardium Orien talis in cruelty and profanity ; 
of Hyoscyamus in jealousy ; of Nux Vomica in mali- 
ciousness ; of Stramonia in cowardice." Page 30, vide. 
" There is not a single operative medicine [says Hahne- 
mann] that does not effect a notable change in the temper 
and manner of thinking." Page 36, vide. " I declare, on 
the basis of my experience in the medicinal treatment of 
moral maladies, my confidence in sulphur as a remedy for 
sin, original or acquired. Common salt is certainly one of 
nature's great sin detergents and moral prophylactics," 
vide page 53. " My own predilections lie in the direction 
of a rigid individualization of every disease, and its rem- 
edy ; of a small, but not the smallest dose, and of a fair 
trial with a single remedy." This author claims to have 
made some advancement over his fellow professionals, and 
he defines himself thus, on page 58 : " Rotten tonsils and 
carious teeth have been treated for weeks and months, by 
over scrupulous homoeopathists, with medicated pellets, 
when the true indication was the forceps and bistoury." 
Again on page 60, " Another colleague had a pet remedy 
in Thuja Occiden talis. It was said to cure Variola (small- 
pox) so quickly in his hands that the pustules had not time 
to mature." Page 61, vide. " Among the eighty or more 
homoeopathic physicians in Brooklyn, I doubt if there 
could be found twenty — probably not ten — capable of 
rendering in a chronic disease, or in an acute case, if ob- 
scure, a sound prescription according to the law of simi- 
lars." Notwithstanding the simplicity which recommends 
this practice to the people, this author seems to have a 



DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF PRACTICE. Ill 

very poor idea of the intellectual proficiency of his fellow 
practitioners in Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Hahnemann, the central star in this constellation of 
nonsense, and father of this large progeny, says in his 
" Organon of Medicine," as mentioned on page 70 by 
same author : " Homoeopathy sheds not a drop of blood, 
administers no emetics, purgatives, laxatives, or diapho- 
retics — never subdues pain by opium." 

In Freligh's " Practice of Medicine," pages 26-28, we 
are informed that the duration of action of these infinites- 
imal doses of medicine are as follows : — 

The power in Arnica acts from six to ten days. 

Borax acts six weeks. 

Animal charcoal acts about forty days. 

Vegetable charcoal acts forty days. 

Coffee acts about ten days. 

Lachesis acts from four to five weeks. 

Hhubarb acts from one to ten days. 

Sulphur acts from six days to two and three weeks. 

To further illustrate the application of the infinitesimal 
dose, with its augmented special powers, I will copy from 
the same author the results of philosophical deduction, 
of the various remedies specifically indicated by affinity 
for the treatment of inflammation of the brain. 

Pages 73, 74. 

When the heat of the head is great, face flushed and . . 

bloated Belladonna, 

When there is loss of consciousness, the patient raving at 

times Hyoscyamus. 

When the face is red ; eyes not much injected, but rather 

bright Stramonia. 



112 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

When the pains in the head are shooting, and aggravate by 

motion Bryonia. 

When the patient remains in a comatose state as if sleeping 

from the effects of an anodyne . Opium. 

When caused by intestinal irritation, as worms 

Aconite and Belladoima. 
When caused by teething. After Aconite and Belladonna 

give Cham. 
When caused by a blow. Arnica must be given first, then 
other drugs. 

Page 112, vide, 

" For inflammation of the knee. When the pain is violent, 

with tremulousness of the knees . . . . Belladonna, 
When the pain is tensive, and increased by motion Bryonia. 
When the pain is dull and worse at night . . . Bhus-tox. 
When the pain is of a stiffening character . . . Sulphur, 
When the pain is gnawing, lacerating .... Mercurius. 
When caused by a bruise. Arnica, external." 

Page 295, vide. 

" For Hernia, (rupture). Among the remedies that have 
been successfully employed in the case of Hernia, are Aconite, 
Aurum, Cocadus, Lycopodium, Nux Vomica, Silicea, Nitric Acid, 
Sulphur, Opium, Arnica, Rhus-tox and Sul. acid. If symp- 
toms of gangrene set in, Lachesis, Arsenic." 

Page 460, 462. 

" For falling off of the hair. When it is caused by grief, Phos. 
Acid, Staphysagria. When caused by severe attacks of head- 
ache, Hepar Sulph., Nitric Acid, Antimony, Silex (Sand), Sepia, 
Stdph. When the hair falls off from the sides of the head. 
Graphites (black lead), Phosphorus, Kali-Carh. 

When from the fore part of the head . Arsenicum, Natrum. 



DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF PRACTICE. 113 

When from the back part of the head 

Vegetable Charcoal and Si I ex. 
When from the temples .... Calc, Kali, Lycopodium. 

When from spots or different parts of the head 

Cantharis (Spanish flies) Phosphorus, Iodine. 
When falling out of the whiskers, Calc-Carb. y Graphites (black 
lead), and Natrum-Muriat. (common salt). 

" First administer the remedy directed by the cause, two or 
more doses, as may be required, after which the condition of the 
hair and scalp should direct the remedy, one dose a day or every 
second day. Diet in accordance with homoeopathic rules." 

If homoeopathic philosophy is such superlative nonsense 
as here represented, which we must all admit, how are we 
to reconcile it with the success which so frequently at- 
tends the sick when thus treated ? 

We are to bear in mind that disease is vital action in 
relation to obnoxious or non-usable material, and the 
pathological or diseased action manifested is divided in 
Part First, thus : one class of actions require to be under- 
stood and let alone, for the vital power is doing the best 
for the recovery of the patient that is possible to be exe- 
cuted. With this kind of disease homoeopathic treat- 
ment, or any kind of applied simplicity, or let-alone-ativ- 
ness, will not interfere with the success of the patient, 
and will furnish apparent reason, with those who do not 
comprehend the principle involved in the cure, to glorify 
this wonderful modern invention. 

The other division of pathological or diseased action, is 
mentioned as being that kind of action which is acting 
very unwisely, and requires to be medicated for the pur- 



114 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

pose of guiding it into different activities, for the better 
interests of the patient. We may inquire, how does 
homoeopathic treatment meet the requirements of this 
class of maladies ? We reply, that it has no more effect 
on this class of disturbances than moral suasion, although 
as an observer you may be induced to believe otherwise, 
for a proper dose, such as is used by the " regulars " 
may be prepared in a concentrated form and not seem to 
violate the rules deduced by this modern philosophy, or 
tarnish the flag of the system, which is waved with much 
briskness to inspire the patient in the belief that there 
has been no change of philosophic base carried into prac- 
tice. 

The practitioner of Homoeopathy may prescribe reme- 
dies properly and possess that requisite good sense im- 
plied in the correct interpretation of events, and we are 
aware of some excellent practitioners who do business un- 
der that name. This rebuke of homoeopathic philosophy 
is not an attack on the personal merit and skill of any 
individual, of the many known members of the school. 
It is against homoeopathic philosophy, theoretical and 
applied, that we are contending, not the man himself. 
Therefore, to convince the reader that there is a great 
departure by this school of practitioners, I will quote 
from the distinguished Dr. Gorton, in his Revised " Med- 
ical Philosophy," page 49, commencing with the last 
line : " The new or Homoeopathic school has been un- 
happily divided into a trinity of medical sects : the 
low dilutionists, the high dilutionists, the medium di- 
lutionists ; and the old dogmatic, partisan spirit is being 
kindled among them, and the love of truth which in- 



DIFFERENT SYSTEMS OF PRACTICE. 115 

spired the early homoeopathists seems to have departed 
from his late followers. Surely Hahnemann, could he 
speak, would rebuke in no uncertain tones these latter 
day dogmatists." 

Thus entrenched by this authority, we are supported in 
saying, that there is a great departure in practice from 
what is advised through the deductions of homoeopathic 
philosophy. 

The practical inadequateness of this system to fulfill 
the dictates of common sense which has ever been the 
great antagonist to this practice, has occasioned the more 
advanced thinkers of this school to adopt the ways of the 
regular physician. Thus those practical come-outers, 
whose common sense is superior to their previous indoc- 
trinated philosophy, have learned by experience that a 
certain class of disturbed actions require to be altered and 
modified by larger doses of medicine, instead of supplying 
that kind of medicine which occasions vital force to exert 
more energy in the direction which was previously mani- 
fested on the plan of similars or supposed affinity. 

In conclusion, it is not difficult to discover how the idea 
or belief in affinity of power, was born in the human 
mind. Hahnemann, like others, received by tradition and 
erroneous culture the belief in a medical power ; and not 
understanding the relation of material to vital force, on 
the plan that certain articles do not occasion a change of 
vital action except in large doses, and not observing any 
opposite effect from the administration of a medicine in 
a certain small dose, the inference was that this power 
introduced must do something; therefore, it was very 
presumable that it might have an affinity for the resident 



116 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

vital power, and united with it to further augment the dis- 
eased action being manifested. Together with the above, 
also, is the fact that he did not know that vital force or 
power could and did act pathologically, both wise and un- 
wise, with a view to self-preservation ; and recognizing 
the former only, he thought every pathological action must 
be accelerated and aided ; thus, with these important 
facts completely outside of his comprehension, both of the 
plan of relation between material and vital force, and 
pathological action being manifested both wise and un- 
wise, he invented the theory that the two kinds of 
power, medical and vital, should have an affinity to unite 
and augment the then existing disturbed action, with a 
view to thus restore a harmonious physiological action, or 
health, sooner or later. This was equivalent to admitting 
that the diseased action was always directed intelligently 
instead of by an instinct, which might be either wise Qr 
unwise, and the doctrine of similars or affinity of powers, 
was presented for the acceptance of a non-comprehensive 
public in the name of similia similibus curantur, or ho- 
moeopathy. 

Practically, the homoeopathic theory does not provide 
for sufficient medicine in many cases, while the " regu- 
lar " provides for too much in many cases. Nature has 
provided but one law of cure, and one code of principles 
to be observed in the treatment of disease, and whenever 
the law of vital force is indoctrinated correctly, all medi- 
cal philosophy will be alike, and but one school of medi- 
cine will be recognized by the interpreters of science. 



PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL PHILOSOPHY. 117 

THE PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

Organic matter has an activity given to itself which it 
must display ; and the doctrine of physiology is the state- 
ment of the various developments accomplished with or- 
ganic matter by the vital force, in the normal exercise of 
its powers. Physiological science has advanced to a posi- 
tion, which is very acceptable in its representation of the 
law, in fulfilling its primary duties of developing and 
maintaining the human organism. 

The phenomena are studied, with a view to explain 
physiology, as an expression inherent to vital force, and 
the success of this inquiry is evidence of a sufficient men- 
tal ability to cope with the mysteries of our existence, 
when furnished with a correct basis or true principle in 
nature, from which to reason. 

The result of our success in this direction contrasts 
strangely with the result of our efforts in endeavoring to 
explain pathological processes. 

Physiological actions are studied from the correct sap- 
position that they are executed by the inherent powers in 
our system, while pathological actions are studied from 
the erroneous supposition that they are executed by a 
power not vital, but a power foreign to our vitalized tis- 
sues and inherent in effete matter and poison. 

One is crowned with a universal acknowledgment of 
success, and the other an inconsistent jargon of opinions. 
When ancient man lifted his portals to give comprehen- 
sive range to his intellect, and sought to bring his thoughts 
into unison with those of the Creator, and viewed human- 
ity, so wonderfully made, he fell short of his ambition. 



118 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

He did not recover the true interpretation of the vital 
principle, but accounted for various actions in the human 
system, as being due to powers entirely foreign to our 
existence. 

What should have been the recovery of the ideal pro- 
totype of God's plan, was a blank ; he could not compre- 
hend man, so mysteriously made, but adopted in part a 
substitute by drawing an ideal plan, that man was created 
in substance in a manner which enabled his organs to ex- 
ecute normal activities by virtue of a vital principle, while 
the abnormal activities of the same organs were supposed 
to be moved, accelerated, retarded, or altered by a power 
inherent to some other material. 

He could not comprehend how the vital principle could 
have two sets of laws ; one its law and harmony of action 
in relation to the usable material, and the other a law of 
abnormal action in relation to material not usable. 

Our schools to-day are indoctrinating the same ancient 
interpretation of two kinds of powers, which run the ma- 
chinery of human life, and I am almost persuaded to say 
they are doing worse, for our medical books abound in 
records of powers, inherent to inorganic matter, which 
have the ability to execute physiological actions. 

From a certain catalogue of a medical school of the first 
order, I quote : " Therapeutics, or the physiological action 
of drugs and their application to disease, are taught in the 
third year by lecture." This is not a solitary instance of 
this kind of theorizing ; but such theory is on the increase 
in our medical literature. 

Of a very recent date in one of our substantial medical 
journals is an article entitled, " The Physiological Action 



PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL PHILOSOPLY. 119 

of Thebain," giving an account of "physiological exper- 
iments with Thebain," and it appears that a great pro- 
portion of the experiments proved fatal to the lower 
animals. 

It was found that the physiological action of Thebain 
would cause convulsions quicker than either of five other 
alkaloids, and rigor mortis quickly ensue. This is a cu- 
rious idea, to have physiological action cause death, ex- 
cept by senility. We are likewise informed that in opium 
are found " seventeen alkaloids and two organic acids," 
and human ingenuity has endowed the drug opium with 
about twenty different kinds of powers, in order to be 
consistent with the theory which is supported only by 
appearances. 

This kind of literature is very prevalent in our schools 
and books, and becomes a constituent of our mongrel 
education, and how long we are to continue the pursuit 
of this inconsistent medley, remains problematical. 

Says Dr. Brown-Sequard in referring to certain errors, 
" Physicians, unfortunately, I speak of myself as well as 
of others, are biased. This bias prevents progress. They 
have received an education which has given them certain 
notions, and those notions prevent a free examination of 
certain questions." 

Bacon says, " Not only what was asserted once is as- 
serted still, but what were questions once are questions 
still, and, instead of being resolved by discussion, are only 
fixed and fed." Are we creatures of tenacity ; stamped 
so indelibly by the court of custom, as to blot out our 
reason ? 

The history of education, from the remotest period un- 



120 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

til quite recently, is in evidence, that when humanity 
manifested any peculiar freak, mentally, were insane or 
epileptic, it was thought that some foreign power had got 
into them, — the spirit of an animal, — or they were be- 
witched, or the evil one was in them. The educated have 
abolished those ideas, although the same principle is con- 
tinued in relation to the effects occasioned by medicine ; 
and those augmented mental powers, manifested by cer- 
tain individuals, outside the general known law of mental 
perception, in a -state of trance, are attributed by many 
to the power of a departed spirit, which has taken pos- 
session of the bodily organs, and is expressing a distinct 
individuality. It has always been a peculiar fact, that 
whenever the human mind could not comprehend human 
actions, the cause has been attributed to a foreign power, 
outside of our individual organic powers, or brain capa- 
bilities of perversion. The powers which have been given 
to mankind are great ; and it is consistent to believe that 
by certain kinds of culture, we acquire abilities which 
transcend ordinary belief ; and the time is not far distant 
when trance phenomena and the peculiar manifestations 
of the period will be reduced to certain principles in har- 
mony with our individual living organization. Many of 
these principles are already within our reach, and others 
have a mental outline not far away. In relation to the 
nutrient material we call food, which has been lifted as it 
were from its elementary state, and organized by vegeta- 
tive powers in such a manner that the animal life pow- 
ers can seize and appropriate it for higher organizations, 
it is frequently the subject of erroneous thought, and very 
unscientifically defined ; with some authors, different arti- 



PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL PHILOSOPHY. 121 

cles of food act on such and such parts of the human or- 
ganism, and yield up their power. 

Instead of entertaining the correct idea that an animal 
organism seizes the material by virtue of its own inherent 
powers, and so uses it that its own powers can continue 
to be manifested, the mind takes the deluded interpreta- 
tion which the false medical power doctrine has inculca- 
ted, and theorizes that vital power is manifested by vir- 
tue of continued accessions or additions of power from 
food. 

A certain writer defines food thus : "A food is that 
which, being innocent in relation to the tissues of the 
body, is a digestible or absorbable substance, that can be 
oxidized in the body and decomposed in such a way as to 
give up to the body the forces which it contains." What- 
ever portion of a material which is " oxidized " or " de- 
composed " is not convertible into tissue, or used in any 
of the constructive duties of organization, consequently is 
not food. 

If the doctrine, that vital power is continued through 
the agency of continued accessions of power from other 
organizations or chemical compounds, is true, vitality 
would not be a special created principle, but a result. 

The doctrines of our medical schools are based on the 
supposed laws of powers in two departments of nature. 
One, the law of vital power, the other, the law of medi- 
cal power. Unfortunately for humanity and for science, 
our forefathers reasoned unwisely, and we are compelled 
out of pure respect to opinion, and nothing more, to 
persist in the attempt to explain our science from false 
premises. Consequently we hear the oft-repeated ex- 



122 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

pression, " I do not think much of theories in medi- 
cine." 

From the chair professional in regard to malarial poi- 
son we are taught that if vital power, or the powers of 
the system as they call it, succeed quickly in removing 
the cause of disease, and establish a balance, the phenom- 
ena can be considered as- due to an effort of nature ; but 
before the lecture is closed you will be instructed that if 
this disturbance is long continued the poisonous malaria 
takes on a morbid action, and exerts its powers on the 
liver and system generally. 

Thus if a success is not readily accomplished by the 
vital power in removing the cause of fever and ague, the 
whole order and law of things are changed, a new power 
steps into activity. And to silence this second power we 
are instructed to introduce the third kind of a power 
found in quinine. 

Dr. Brown-Sequard, of well known distinguished abil- 
ity, attempts to establish the proofs of the supposed exist- 
ence of a power in medicine under the following head : — 

u POWER OF OXYGEN, STRYCHNINE, AND THE WILL." 

" What now is the agent of production of nervous force 
in our blood ? It is clear that blood itself must be neces- 
sary to the production of nerve force. Still, for a time} 
the oxygen alone which is carried by the blood may suf- 
fice. Oxygen, even when the blood seems to have been 
taken away altogether from the part, can give some nerve 
force to the nervous system, but there is a medicinal 
agent which has immense 'power in producing nervous re- 
sults. 

1 The italics in this quotation are mine. 



PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 

" When the spinal cord of a frog has been washed of 
every drop of blood, when injections have been made of 
pure water so as to carry away every particle of blood, if 
strychnine is pnt on the spinal cord, in a very short time 
the amount of reflex power, which is a manifestation of 
nerve force, is very much greater than it was before, show- 
ing that strychnine has increased that power. This is the 
only fact we know which clearly proves that a medicine, 
putting aside oxygen, can have such a power, and a power, 

indeed, which is very great What is the power of 

our will on the nerve force? This is a question which a 
great many patients ever}^ day ask themselves. There is 
no doubt that nerve force is very little under our will. 
It may be that we would spend it very foolishly, as we 
do spend many other things." 

That part of the quotation after the " . ..." is 
equivalent to admitting that there are two different 
sources from which life force is generated, namely, the 
voluntary and involuntary, or, in other words, the in- 
stinctive and the will power, which is in support of the 
theory of vitality advocated in the first part of this vol- 
ume. 

One simple fact, rightly understood and truly inter- 
preted, will teach as much as a thousand facts of the 
same kind ; thus the inductions which we get by observ- 
ing the simple may be used with success to disentangle 
the phenomena of the complex, and to give a correct ex- 
planation to the phenomena introduced by Dr. Brown- 
Sequard in the application of strychnine to the spinal 
cord to prove the existence of a power in the strych- 
nine. I will quote the same Dr. Brown-Sequard against 



124 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

himself : " There is an immense difference as regards the 
amount of nervous force that remains in the system after 
death, according to many circumstances, and especially 
according to temperature. If we have considerably di- 
minished the temperature of animals having a great heat, 
such as we have, and we then kill them by means that 
will not bring on convulsions and an expenditure of force, 
we find that the amount of force that remains is consid- 
erable, and that it will remain there a very long time." 

Now the kindjrf force which he refers to is the same 
as we witness when an eel is being cooked in the frying 
pan, if recently killed, the nerves of organic or instinc- 
tive force become irritated or surrounded with abnormal 
conditions affording sensations which occasion the writh- 
ing or contracting of the muscles. The heat in the cook- 
ing process occasions the muscular actions only while 
there is a remaining organic force ; also in the applica- 
tion of the strychnine, those effects noticed are not pro- 
longed beyond the time of the remaining organic force ; 
thus Dr. Brown-Sequard furnishes us with the very prin- 
ciple which explains the phenomena, in regard to which 
he has made an erroneous interpretation. Therefore, 
the most positive and " only fact we know, which clearly 
proves that a medicine can have such a power," is com- 
pletely reversed in its interpretation by a law of organic 
force illustrated by the same demonstrator. 

This whole problem is plain enough when we learn 
that irritability of the nerve is not action of a foreign 
power on the nerve, but the action of its own organic 
power in relation to abnormal contact, or sensation, which, 
however, is a cause, but not a power. 



PRESENT STATE OF MEDICAL PHILOSOPHY. 125 

Says Alexander Bain in his work on " Logic," when 
speaking of the ebb of intellectual acquirements : " The 
uncertainty where to look for the next opening of discov- 
ery brings the pain of conflict and the debility of indecis- 
ion." 

It seems worthy of consideration by the medical pro- 
fession, and others who have the capacity and interest in 
the operations of science, to survey the fields of medical 
philosophy, and scan closely the relativity of phenomena. 
After your observation has taken in the facts, do not be 
content with the traditional philosophy which you have 
been educated to admire, against which your senses rebel ; 
but go forth into the field of imagination for a trip of 
originality ; search for principles which are in harmony 
with all facts. 

Do not treat too lightly the idea of sending your im- 
agination in pursuit of those primary principles, for it is 
through imagination that we acquire all of our most im- 
portant knowledge, which imagination is corrected or 
confirmed by observation, and philosophy binds into one 
harmonious whole. It is through imagination that the 
greatest discoveries are made ; imagination is but mental 
perception of non-tangible relations ; our present medical 
philosophy is but deductions endeavoring to harmonize 
modern facts with ancient imagination. Instead of con- 
sidering ourselves a peer with ancient man, in the field of 
imagination, we have taken the position of a subordinate, 
and adopted his contracted and erroneous views of the 
great plan of life. 

As a profession we are indulging in a glory of intellec- 
tual attainment, and the world of thought has been made 



126 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

to believe that our present mental emotions arise from 
unquestioned premises ; we are sailing over the sea of 
time, reveling in the sunshine of worldly fame, which 
contributes to our pride and bestows its applause of 
honor. Our department of learning is so skillfully en- 
trenched and baricaded that no other department can 
attack our citadel of wisdom with any assurance of suc- 
cess ; we have the ability to perpetuate our errors for 
another century to come, and feel that our premises are 
impregnable to any assault, except from those of our own 
profession. It becomes us then to consider whether we 
will break away from the moorings to which tradition 
has bound us, and strive to recover the harmonious plan 
ordained for the manifestations of human life ; or con- 
tinue in pursuit of that phantom imagination, which has 
no prototype in the plans of the Deity. 

THE DRIFT OF MEDICAL RESEARCH AND ITS INFLU- 
ENCE ON THE PEOPLE. 

There is a confessed inability to solve multitudes of 
medical problems, on a plan of relative harmony ; or even 
to maintain a code of principles, which by analogy affords 
us a hopeful future ; and among the various adopted 
principles for the establishment of the science, there is 
scarcely a doubt relative to the correctness of those in 
use. 

The great desideratum according to this belief, is, that 
a more profound exploration in the present direction will 
eventually unearth something which will illuminate the 
shady corners of our science, and transmit a brilliancy in 
the direction of positiveness, on a level with other 



DRIFT AND INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH. 127 

sciences ; consequently there is little or no reconsideration 
of the premises, or examination of those doctrines which 
have been adopted with a view to give the imprint of 
stability to our department ; but an implicit and un- 
doubted faith is manifested in the mental ability and cor- 
rectness of the imagination of those who erected the 
guide-boards of our science a few hundred years ago. 
Those chirographic characters have not been examined to 
see if they give a true expression to the language of 
nature, but have only been repainted from time to time, 
to keep alive their conspicuousness ; and the index finger 
points to-day as it did in the days of Acron, who is men- 
tioned by Pliny as the first to apply philosophical reason- 
ing to medicine. We have been traveling for centuries 
in accordance with the direction of that index finger, but 
have not got there ; we have not mastered the sciences ; we 
have established a very excellent system of practice, but 
have not acquired the ability to talk about it, except in a 
practical manner; theory is so unsatisfactory that it is 
fast drifting into the museum of lost arts. Our knowl- 
edge of the laws of nature, as applied to the facts of na- 
ture, is so discordant and dissatisfactory, that he who 
endeavors to explain the facts, by setting forth the laws 
or theory, is liable to be considered diminutive or vision- 
ary in the judgment of medical men. 

The astronomer can explain his facts, because the law 
on which they are predicated in nature is understood ; 
the medical philosopher cannot explain the facts of his 
department, because nature's laws are not understood. 
I ask what other department of scientific thought stands 
on our books in the same attitude as that adopted by the 



128 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

ancients ? History informs us that we have had to cor- 
rect all departments of philosophy except medical ; and 
yet medical science is the most profound science instituted 
by the hands of the great Architect. 

Were the ancients more wise in this department than 
in others? or must we admit that the time has not ar- 
rived which permits of a reconstruction in a satisfactory 
manner. The prosecution of thought by the profession 
to-day is not for reconstructive purposes, but for acquir- 
ing a greater speed in the direction of that index finger ; 
although different and rival systems of practice have 
sprung up which may satisfy the ignorant, but science 
has no rival. There is but one science, but one way of 
practicing medicine scientifically ; and the reason we have 
made no satisfactory progress in medical philosophy, is 
not because we are incompetent, but because we are look- 
ing in the wrong direction, drifting along with the tide 
of disconsolate reason, with our observation and belief on 
the alert -for the discovery of a new power in some com- 
bination of correlative medical forces, which will not 
wane or weary in that time of need, when more momen- 
tum is required to keep in motion the machinery of life. 

An examination of medical literature, in the various 
journals devoted to the interests of our science, will fur- 
nish sufficient proof that the investigating tendency is 
largely in the direction of new remedies ; and we occupy 
to-day very much the position of the devotee of fashion 
who is trimmed in accordance with the Parisian style. 
The pharmacists and manufacturing chemists manufac- 
ture their " goods " with a view to meet the acceptable 
sentiment of the profession, comminuting and preparing 



DRIFT AND INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH. 129 

in soluble form the various new preparations for the 
purpose of affording a material which will become both a 
medicine and a food; being manipulated with extreme 
care, and of the choicest chemicals, whereby the com- 
pounds are supposed to be really chemical food, and are 
thus labeled, highly lauded, and generally used, until 
practical experience chooses to discard them, and adopt 
a more modern invention. 

Too often ^instead of administering a placebo to pacify 
the mind of a peculiar patient, the reverse is true, and 
we are the victims of misplaced confidence, and are 
treated to a mental placebo, in administering some high- 
priced inoffensive preparation, with the expectation of its 
powers executing valuable service, while in reality the 
patient is being cured by the unaided law of his own 
vital force. There is one redeeming consolation in per- 
petuating this error of a belief in medical power, which 
is, that one can speak a great amount of nonsense, and 
nobody will know it, and it is really taken for wisdom. 

It is not to be questioned that this great error of our 
time, of incorrect thought, has largely influenced our hab- 
its in life, and that we are freighted with untold miseries 
which a more correct interpretation would have obliter- 
ated a century ago ; thus as a people we are suffering in 
body for the mental errors committed by our forefathers. 
Instead of being in possession of the acquired knowledge 
of the law which, enables life to be most advantageously 
manifested, we are the victims of inherited beliefs which 
have long neglected, and ever been slow to establish the 
sanitary surroundings which favor the longevity of our 
own race. 



130 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

For all our shortcomings in bodily health, we have 
been educated to depend largely, very largely, on a trans- 
muted power to afford relief ; and instead of being taught 
to economize and husband our vital resources, we have 
been permitted to waste our energies with the belief that 
other energies could be substituted therefor. 

We have become a nation of medicine-takers, and the 
great and overwhelming idea possessed by the people is 
that the chief duty of a physician consists in administer- 
ing foreign active powers to the human organism, to ex- 
ecute the actions of life. 

In proof of this firmly implanted idea, we have only 
to look to the field of quackery and patent nostrum vend- 
ing, so generously supported and encouraged by- our peo- 
ple. This belief is not only sapping the vitality of our 
nation, but is a draft on their purses a thousand times 
greater than is levied by our government. This belief 
inspires an unquestioned confidence, which places the most 
ignorant pretender and bombast on a level with educated 
physicians, and detracts ruinously from the reputed supe- 
riority of a professional education, and is the unavoidable 
sequence of our committed error. This may seem severe 
on the disciples of our science, yet it is the truth, and 
must be known in order to be corrected. 

In order to correct the habits of the people it is not 
necessary to make medical experts of them, but to give 
them the right direction, and thus, to illustrate, the science 
of astronomy is no better understood by the non-profes- 
sional than is the science of medicine, although the peo- 
ple have been taught that the laws must be understood 
by which computations and calculations are correctly 



DRIFT AND INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH. 131 

made, otherwise all predictions would be futile. The 
people have learned to regard as an impostor any one 
whose garb and language implied ignorance of the laws 
which move planetary bodies, whatever might be his pre- 
tensions. 

It is not so with medical science. We have not edu- 
cated the people that to be correct physicians it was nec- 
essary to understand the vital law, but have waived most 
of these pretensions, and are inculcating the idea that a 
knowledge of the power which medicines possess enables 
the physician to supply the required energies for continu- 
ing the functions of life. 

With this understanding of the premises, is it strange 
that the people are so easily influenced by quacks and 
pretenders ? Is it strange that this strong faith in such 
powers should make diminutive the importance of whose 
hands it came through ? Is it strange that this seemingly 
great required want of varied and increased powers, 
which we are taught can be supplied by medicine, should 
occasion to be bottled and pilled, and kept for sale like 
bread and meat, those powers for the people to purchase 
at their liking, without the aid of the middle man, physi- 
cian ? 

Certainly not ; such are the legitimate sequences of a 
science which is not self-supporting, which cannot give 
safe direction to the habits of the people, and whose 
principles remain enshrouded in mystery. 

It may be humiliating to our pride to be thus con- 
fronted, but if there was any mild gentle persuasive man- 
ner, that would dispossess the profession of this great er- 
ror, I would gladly adopt it. 



132 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

We are to teach the people, that the science of medi- 
cine is based on a knowledge of but one law : namely, the 
law of vital power ; that medicine cannot be used scien- 
tifically and safely, without a knowledge of how this vital 
force behaves in health and disease ; a knowledge whether 
this vital force is doing the best for our welfare which 
the case permits, and requires only to be let alone and 
watched, or whether it requires to be medicated ; and 
also how this vital force behaves in relation to the vari- 
ous kinds of medicine. 

Then, and not until then, will the science of medicine 
assume the position where it belongs. When the people 
are made to believe and understand the importance of 
these premises, quacking and patent medicine patronage 
will fail to encourage that faith which now permits 
human life to be trusted in the hands of an ignoramus. 
Then will the traffickers in inveigled medical powers be- 
come as insignificant as one would to-day in pretending 
to sell the pow r er or force of chemical affinity, or the 
power of gravitation. 

Another misery entailed on humanity, in consequence 
of the belief of a power in medicine, is intemperance^ 
which is largely augmented by the belief that alcoholic 
stimulus imparts a power to the human organism. 

Alcoholic stimulus is a valuable article of Materia 
Medica, when properly used, to occasion a changed or in- 
creased vital action in certain directions, more favorable 
to the maintenance of life ; but the knowledge which en- 
ables it to be used and not abused is not found in the 
universal application which supposes that any man is 
wise enough to prescribe for himself. 



DRIFT AND INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH. 133 

Through this education of thus receiving accessions of 
power, and the peculiar sensation of happiness, by its ner- 
vine effect, many have been induced to continue its use 
until the habit, with its miseries, becomes developed be- 
yond the power of good resolution to restore. The power 
of moral suasion is of inestimable value and yet has been 
overrated in its expected applicability to the race ; and it 
is in the lesson we are about to learn that the errors and 
miseries growing out of mistaken science are responsible 
for a state of society which moral suasion has endeavored 
to correct. The forces of moral suasion have been rallied 
and its energies spent, and yet the enemy scarcely dis- 
turbed in its slumber. I trust the reader can see what 
the temperance reform is contending with ; one school of 
instructors educate the people in a manner which largely 
tends to form bad habits. The other school of instruc- 
tion is endeavoring to suppress the habits which a pre- 
vious education incurs, because those habits entail misery. 

Science should so provide for our future that education 
would not conflict with moral suasion and law ; so long 
as education conflicts with legislation, legal enactments 
will continue to be unpopular and of little avail. 

A community of intelligent humanity would be con- 
trolled by education and moral suasion even if there was 
no law ; the enactment of certain statutes are to control 
that class of people who are not susceptible to moral and 
intellectual forces, either from inability or selfishness. 

The large majority of our people who give approved 
and practical support to our laws, are those who judge of 
the merits of a law, by their previous education. There- 
fore, it is self-evident that no law can receive proper and 



134 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

popular support against the convictions of our indoctri- 
nated, erroneous principles. Correct education, moral 
suasion, and proper law go hand in hand, and are not 
opposing influences ; what the people and the temper- 
ance question first require is more education, instead of 
more law. 



CONCLUSION. 

The satisfactory study of a science should embrace a 
diligent inquiry into all of its fundamental principles; 
interpret them correctly, and thus establish the premises 
for an examination of all sides of a question in such a 
manner as to corroborate the correctness of a conclusion. 
The memory of spoken words does not constitute the re- 
covery of the principle of medical philosophy, but the 
mental recognition of the principle becomes essential, 
that the student may express the principle in his own 
language. The ideas of Medical Science grow too much 
out of customs of speech, instead of primary principles, 
Science, from the hand of its maker, is instituted on fun- 
damental premises as harmonious as the magnetic needle, 
always pointing in the same direction, and the discord in 
its unlike representations, is due to a lack of mental per- 
ception, in recovering the true significance of nature's lan- 
guage in her efforts to express her principles. Professor 
Tyndall expressed the following idea in a recent lecture 
in Boston : " There are three great theories which en- 
able the human mind to open the secrets of nature — the 
theory of gravitation, the mechanical theory of heat, and 
the undulatory theory of light. These three pillars, as 
far as human intellect is concerned, support the universe." 
Tyndall should include the theory of vitality, which ex- 
plains the relative position and laws of the vegetable and 



136 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

animal kingdoms. For when we acquire sufficient com- 
prehension to drink in those principles which " support 
the universe," it certainly should include the vegetable 
and animal creations, which are no small part of that ex- 
ecutive duty perfected through the agency of ordained 
law. 

Tyndall's three theories do not include the human 
race. 

Mankind has long overlooked the idea that vitality 
was a special principle in nature, governed by its own 
laws, and consequently we have long been endeavoring to 
account for what vital force was doing, through the 
agency of supposed special principles inherent to a low 
order of creation outside the domains of life. 

THE PLAN OF HUMAN LIFE. 

We have a nervous system, which fulfills for us those 
duties which are fulfilled similarly in organizations low 
in the scale of animal life. That is, there is an instinc- 
tive organic force generated in accordance with the crea- 
tive ability of nerve ganglionic centers, completely out- 
side of the will, which is possessed of a distinguishing 
selective ability of appropriating and assimilating what 
becomes necessary for the individual maintenance, and 
eschewing that which is hurtful or non-usable. 

These are implanted principles for self-preservation, 
without which we could hardly live a day. One distin- 
guishing principle between animal organic life and the 
organic life of vegetation, consists in the latter having the 
ability to absorb only what is beneficial, with no power of 
elimination, not even of its own waste matter, but it must 



CONCLUSION. 137 

store it up within the organization ; while the animal or- 
ganism absorbs both usable and unusable material, with 
a power to eliminate its own effete material, and limited 
ability to eliminate foreign material. 

Thus animal organic life is endowed with a self-pre- 
servative power, and the individual organism is devel- 
oped and defended by a generated force, through the 
ganglionic centers, called instinct. How instinct gener- 
ates power is an inquiry which extends beyond and an- 
terior to philosophical research ; we shall never know how 
it is generated any more than we shall know how the 
power of gravitation is generated. It is within our limits 
only to seize it as it is, and study its manifestations 
through its different properties of organic perception and 
action. 

Instinct has but two properties, namely, perception by 
contact or sensation, and contractility or the ability to 
execute motion ; these constitute its two ultimate vital 
properties. 

Instinct, throughout all animal life, from the lowest 
animal organism without a brain, to the highest man 
with a cerebrum, is on the same plan, although the de- 
grees of sensations are variable, and the ability to ex- 
ecute motion is developed on a progressive scale. The 
duty of the instinct is to superintend the building of the 
organism, to use that material which is proper to be used, 
and reject that material which is impossible to use, which 
is known to the instinct through the nerve or vital prop- 
erty called sensation. 

Thus the physiological law is the law of the instinctive 
vital action, in relation to how it uses nutrient material ; 



138 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

and the pathological law is the law of the instinctive 
vital action in relation to material which is non-usable ; 
therefore, health is the normal action directed by in- 
stinct in relation to nutrient material, and disease is the 
abnormal* action directed by instinct in relation to non- 
nutrient material ; consequently the plan of life involves 
but one ordained power which gives involuntary motion 
to living tissues. 

Thus, as a living human organism, we do not maintain 
an individuality in relation to the outside or material 
world, which may be moved, propelled, or acted upon by a 
multiplicity of inferior] y ordained and imaginative powers; 
but we are the product of a superior ordained force, and 
like the planetary system which executes varied phenom- 
ena through the realms of space in conformity to the 
special ordained force or power of gravitation, we as 
individual organizations execute the functions of life, 
both voluntary and involuntary, in accordance with a 
special ordained power. Our activity under all circum- 
stances, in health and disease, is due to an inherent life 
principle, which recognizes each individual relation to the 
material world ; each individual identity- is manifested 
through the special vital properties sensation, sensibility, 
and motion, and the organic wants, or likes and dislikes, 
are practically executed by involuntary motion or activi- 
ties, generated by the impulse of instinct, which is in- 
formed of all presence by sensation. Our individual 
wants, or likes and dislikes, are practically executed by 
activities generated by the impulse of the will, or the vol- 
untary powers of brain sensibility. 

In the order of development, as the nerve structure be- 



CONCLUSION. 139 

comes more highly endowed, we find superadded to the 
organic instincts, a higher order of controlling power, 
usually denominated animal instinct, as applied to that 
class of animals who build their habitations always on 
the same plan, and execute certain acts perfectly at birth, 
as the wasp, beaver, and the chicken that scratches in 
search of nutriment. 

Such endowments are not organic instinct, but are 
more properly voluntary instincts or semi-brain powers, 
which give direction to voluntary motion. Voluntary in- 
stincts or semi-brain powers have, in fulfillment of duty, 
the protection of the body after it is organized, while or- 
ganic instincts arrange the material during the process of 
organization. 

These duties are so unlike, in the kind of labor exe- 
cuted, that the principles of science demand that the term 
" instinct," unqualified, shall not be applied to both. 

The brain power or force is a superadded ability, de- 
pendent for its manifestation on a previous fulfillment of 
organic growth, through the controlling force of instinct ; 
therefore, it is very evident that the lower orders of life 
can execute their functions, generation after generation, 
without the aid of the higher endowments ; but the higher 
orders cannot exist without the previous development of 
the lower. Man is organically that highly elaborated 
production of the instinctive controlling power, executed 
on the same plan of primitive principles of animal crea- 
tion, but more highly endowed with more massive nervous 
structure, enlarging into a brain. Whatever development 
we possess is really due to the labors of the involuntary 
organic instincts ; although we may so modify the sur- 



140 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

roundings as will permit the increase, or retard the growth 
of those highly elaborated structures. 

Thus the range of duty performed by involuntary 
powers gives organization to structures, which execute 
voluntary will powers ; and man organically is embodied 
within that department of labor executed by instinct, 
with its two vital properties, sensation and motion, de- 
veloping those structures which permit the manifestations 
of the superadded vital property of sensibility. 

Animals may be what man is defined to be organically ; 
but man is even more than what he is organically ; 
he is distinguished functionally, above animal life, with 
the superadded ability of a greater expanse of the intel- 
lect and with the higher qualities of mind, expressed 
through hope, consciousness, and spirituality. Man, un- 
like any other organization, is endowed with the ability 
to know himself ; that is, through his sensibility he may 
look back and survey the premises, or orders of creation 
beneath him, and compare them with his own. He may 
behold the silent activity of that law which makes him 
the possessor of his special endowment, sensibility. He 
may comprehend the law of that force or instinctive 
power which both maintains and defends him. Through 
the sensibility, we have a limited power of correcting 
those actions of our involuntary life, unlike any other 
creature. 

The beasts of the field and the forest are organized 
on that plan, which occasions them to partake only of 
those kinds of food, or swallow little material, except 
that which the organic instincts may use for constructive 
purposes; while man, with greater abilities, necessarily 



CONCLUSION. 141 

has greater responsibilities ; his abilities are not only 
greater in accumulation, but greater in defence; there- 
fore, should he take into his system that material unfit 
for constructive purposes, he not only has more ability, 
through the powers of his organic instinct, but his brain 
powers may comprehend, and direct to a certain ex- 
tent, these involuntary powers of instinct, in accomplish- 
ing their designed duty. 

The order of creation, made known to us through the 
various modes of research, gives ample testimony that 
there have been periods of life on earth when the highest 
organization was not equal to our domesticated animals, 
and that in the human race are combined the results of 
a successive unfolding of higher and more complicated 
structural organizations. The various additional devel- 
opments which have been unfolded through the successive 
productions of animal life, from the lowest to the high- 
est, do not seem to be a superadded ability to a lower 
animal, which makes that one a higher animal in the scale 
of progression, but the specific law of unfolding has its 
limits in the particular kind, so far as general bodily con- 
formation is concerned, and the special ordained force 
which forms each organization is unlike all others, in this 
particular respect, that each ordained force is ushered into 
activity with a certain definite limit to its unfolding or 
developmental forms, and that each created organization 
is the result of a specific, separate ordained force. The 
premises which particularly warrant this interpretation, 
in brief, may be found in the evidences of the immuta- 
bility of God's plans. It would be a dangerous precedent 
to accept His ways as being changeable. 



142 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

We are all, as distinguished in the separate animal 
races, the special result of a separate ordained force ; al- 
though our attainments are not special providences, but 
the result of conformity and strict adherence to the spe- 
cial law of force ; whereby we receive the greatest bless- 
ing ordained for us, thus making us accountable beings, 
— accountable for the fulfillment of the conditions which 
enable us to reap the rewards provided for our welfare. 

Certain definite proportions are conformed to in the 
creation of the various kinds of animal life, which not 
only gives expression to their individuality, but gives an 
ability for self-defence ; which conformity becomes essen- 
tial for voluntary animal functions ; thus the long-legged 
animal rapidly measures distance between himself and 
the enemy, while the more ferocious fight it out on the 
spot. 

Throughout the domain of animal life shape gives an 
index to the peculiar character and ability of the organi- 
zations ; and this law holds good even in mankind. There 
must be a limit, however, to the general principle in- 
volved in the construction of bodily forms ; and we have 
many reasons for accepting the human form as the near- 
est perfect for the development of the brain abilities. 

Therefore, so far as the plan of general bodily form 
is involved, nature has fulfilled the extreme of her or- 
dained ability ; and the unfolding or higher orders of 
development are no longer in the direction of bodily 
shape, but the direction of the particular organ, brain. 

The unfoldings of nature, during the age of men, are 
in relation to the increased capabilities of brain force. 
Our ordained abilities in this direction are not fulfilled, 



CONCLUSION. 143 

our capabilities are not circumscribed; a few great minds 
have shot far ahead of the majority; but the end is not 
yet. Not only have we an intellectual range to develop, 
but there are also almost unknown brain abilities to be 
developed, quite unlike our general preconceived views. 
Thus we are not only organized capable of looking 
backwards, and surveying the mighty results of His 
Works, but we are endowed with abilities which enable 
us to look forward toward the future. Brain and in- 
tellect are created and manifested by a process of con- 
structive lifting up ; thus the brain is directly developed 
through the actions of other powers, which make the 
organ. We cannot have intellect without a brain, nor a 
brain without the constructive fulfillment of instinctive 
action. Intellect is not the highest attribute manifested 
through organization, for we have superadded to our 
intellectual powers certain functions, or rather qualities 
of a higher nature, hope, conscience, and the soul prin- 
ciple spirituality, which are more than intellect, yet 
manifested only through the intellect. 

We cannot manifest a soul principle without intellect, 
nor intellect without a brain, nor a brain without a pre- 
vious aggregation of matter, in accordance with the law 
of organic instinct, nor a manifestation of animal organic 
instinct without a previous fulfillment of vegetative or- 
ganic law ; and anterior to this must exist the activity 
of atomic changes in accordance with the laws of chem- 
istry ; the whole to be preceded by Him who creates not 
only the material, but ordains the law which fulfills all 
these activities which our sensibility perceives ; thus the 
extremes meet or simulate, the created and the Creator 
know each other. 



144 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

God possesses greater power than we always attribute 
to Him ; instead of wielding that influence which we per- 
ceive in activity, and often express as His Will, it is 
His Will indirect ; that is, He creates not only the ma- 
terial, but ordains the law which gives activity to this 
material, which must be obeyed in order to fulfill the ob- 
jects of His Will, and for aught we know He is a silent 
observer of His Works. 

It is through His Works only that we know Him ; 
likewise with our race : it is not the material man, but 
the works of mankind, which enable us to know them ; 
which give value, infusing sentiments that continue with 
the future. God not only creates the material, but He 
ordains the law, giving to it the imprints of its mission ; 
thus He ordains the force which is inseparate and in- 
clusive, that stamps the individuality of our existence, 
and enables us to be what we ourselves and the gen- 
erations before us have permitted us to be through them, 
by conformity or otherwise to those laws which should 
be known, and conditions supplied that the best results 
thereby may be fulfilled. 

That force which establishes our existence is em- 
bodied, that is, in the inclusive sense, with the primary 
abilities which develop a body, with its •manifestations 
of organic instincts, and develops our brain for the mani- 
festation of intellect ; and develops our soul principle for 
the manifestation of those higher qualities ; we have all 
these in the outs tart as a primal gift, to develop our na- 
tures in fulfillment of the plan of human accountability. 

And what we fall short of or fail to possess, humanity is 
alone responsible for, either by transgression or omission, 



CONCLUSION. 145 

along the pathway of past generations or the career of 
our own present life. With these premises before us, 
omission is to sin against opportunity or knowledge. 
Consequently, it becomes our duty to know the laws 
which develop and maintain our body, that we may im- 
prove ourselves by physical culture, which constructs a 
better and more enduring brain. And the brain should 
also be cultured, not alone for the degree of intellect 
which it may be possible to attain, but through it more 
intelligently to cultivate the moral and religious senti- 
ments, or the soul principle of our nature. 

The value of a body, as a body, consists in the total 
of its instinctive energies harmoniously balanced, or in 
other words, its power of development and enduring 
abilities. The value of a brain, as a brain, consists in 
the total of its intellectual abilities, which benefits the 
individual and the race, comprehending the most of the 
universe and those higher qualities which relate us to 
infinity. 

The value of a soul, consists not in the fact that it is a 
principle of our nature stamped with the imprint of im- 
mortality, but in the degree of its religious culture and 
practical workings in relation to surrounding humanity. 

There is a great tendency in the study of material 
man to gravitate towards the conclusion, that all he is, 
is the result of organization ; that consequently, when 
that structure, the brain, which manifests both the intel- 
lectual and the soul principle, becomes destroyed, he is 
no more, or, in other words, the material through which 
he has established an individuality dissolves his existence 
and makes the future a blank. 
10 



146 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

It is very rational that man should frequently, and 
even more frequently than he allows himself to confess, 
arrive at such a state of contemplation of human destiny, 
not however because it is true, but because he does not 
comprehend sufficient of the principles ordained for his 
development. He is liable to infer that the soul prin- 
ciple is developed after, arriving at maturity, instead of 
being an ever-present special principle, undergoing a 
slow or rapid development. 

Mankind start in life from the hand of the Creator, 
in possession of those immortal principles which are mani- 
fested in the development of the material body and 
brain, through which one is to express, maintain, and 
develop his identity and accountability ; thus he begins 
with a starting germ of invisible power or principle, 
which awaits the law of its own development; for its 
manifestation to our senses, consequently, along the path- 
way of life, there is existing that principle which de- 
velops the body to its full size, unless human agencies 
either remote or proximate have intervened ; there is the 
principle which fulfills the possibilities for an intel- 
lectual attainment, which will be manifest unless human 
agencies have curtailed the fulfillment of the design. 
There is also the soul-principle germ, if I may use the 
term, awaiting the process of development through other 
previous fulfillments. Thus, at any stage of life, there 
is an immortal or soul principle, more or less developed, 
to be returned to its Maker, bringing back the fruits of 
the mission for which it was started. 

This is the only plan on which we can harmonize the 
philosophy of human life and the doctrines of theology 



CONCLUSION. 147 

with man's accountability to himself and to God, as a 
free moral agent. 

If man was the product of evolutionary development 
on the Darwinian theory, his soul principle would be an 
appendage to organization, rather than a primary princi- 
ple stamped with the imprint of immortality ; and in- 
stead of special and primal ordained principles of force 
which fulfill the mission for which they are established, 
the forces of creation would have no fixed identity to 
fulfill in different animal races ; and we might as well ex- 
pect gravitation to turn into some other force, and chem- 
ical and vital forces to change their avocations, as to be- 
lieve that the different animal species fail to fulfill in 
development the full limit of the ordained design through 
the special force which perfects this individual existence. 
Instead of order we should have disorder. 

If man's brain was highly endowed without man's 
efforts, he would not be accountable ; if man's soul-princi- 
ple was created in the fulfillment of its activities, he 
would require no religious culture, and possess no moral 
accountability ; consequently, along the pathway of life 
there must be different degrees of intellectual develop- 
ment, and different degrees of soul development, and at 
premature death with the former, there must be less loss 
to remaining man, and with the latter less returned to 
God. 

Religious culture does not consist alone in establishing 
th,e belief or faith among men that there is an immortal 
principle within them for which they should continue to 
express gratitude in formal praise and song, although it 
embraces those premises which are but a very small part 



148 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

of men's religious duties. The ability to give zest to 
song or enthusiasm to prayer, may express emotional 
qualities which have an influence to impress the hearer 
with a sympathetic intuition of the importance of relig- 
ious culture, and he feels that he is converted : it is but 
conversion to belief, not conversion to possessed wisdom ; 
without sufficient wisdom these conversions are liable to 
merge into transparency. 

Thus, unadulterated religion must necessarily be highly 
seasoned with intelligence in order to be consistent with 
itself. 

In support of the theory that the soul-principle is an 
ever present part of invisible humanity, which we have 
already been persuaded to believe, through the instru- 
mentality of faith, is the demonstration from those de- 
vout exercises in which heathen men participate with 
implicit faith, although undeveloped intellect. 

Belief is not religion, although it may influence us to 
cultivate and manifest religion. A strong belief in the 
divine wisdom of God and the mission of Christ, with a 
weak intellect or undeveloped mentality, makes persons 
seem to be hypocrites, although they may not be so any 
more than the heathen, for they act up to their intelli- 
gence. A strong belief in the importance of a great in- 
tellect without possessing it, does not make the believer 
equal to the one who does possess it ; nor the firm belief 
in the importance of religion without the intellectual abil- 
ity to execute it, or even if neglected in its active fulfill- 
ment, does not make that religious believer equal to a 
Christian. 

It is a religious duty to develop and maintain bodily 



CONCLUSION. 149 

health, also to cultivate the intellect, for it is only through 
the two that we are enabled to manifest that religious 
element which cannot be otherwise cultivated. Inten- 
tions may be good, and the heathen may sacrifice human 
life to propitiate the anger of the gods ; therefore, if the 
comprehension is not what it should be, we do not fulfill 
uprightly those practical duties which alone constitute 
religious conduct. The zealous believer with small brain 
capabilities is very liable to be so in love with God's will 
and way, that he often attempts to render service to God 
by assisting Him in the punishment of mankind. 

When we praise God it becomes us to inquire of our- 
selves whether we praise Him through the convictions of 
our perceptive wisdom and appreciation of His greatness, 
or whether we do it parrot like, with a language which 
has but little intellect or soul in it. 

The doctrine of repentance is sometimes erroneously 
taught ; our souls are not lost without repentance ; that 
is, whatever there may be of this principle developed, 
which is always more or less, and which is returned to 
God ; but without repentance and correct ways of life 
we lose what we should otherwise acquire, or fail to save 
that which it was ordained that we should develop in 
order to be acceptable. 

I have previously said that the present unfolding of 
God's powers were not in relation to bodily form, but in 
relation to the development of the brain. A comparison 
of the Christian brain with the heathen is in proof of this 
order of progression, and that we are yet pursuing the 
progressing tendency, but are a long distance from its 
maximum glory. 



150 THEORY OF MEDICAL SCIENCE. 

The expanse of the intellect and the soul must go 
hand in hand ; it cannot be otherwise ; but intellectual 
ambition is too easily satisfied, and the doctrines of the- 
ology sometimes tend to contract the intellect, in its en- 
deavors to expand the faith. Faith without intellect 
makes a heathen ; with it, makes the Christian. Re- 
ligious faith, without proper intellect, is selfish, and 
strives to guard its supposed premises against the devel- 
opment of science, as if science was an enemy to religion. 
Everything which is called religion may not be religion, 
everything which is called science may not be science. 

True science, instead of conflicting with true religion, 
supports and substantiates it ; the religion of this age 
takes its advanced position through the better under- 
standing of God's law, which is science ; what theology 
cannot do to Christianize the world, science can ; when 
theology staggers at its task, science comes to the rescue. 



11 Prof. Kuss's work seems to us to be the best Students' Man* 
ual we have seen" — Medico-Chirurgical Review. 



JUST PUBLISHED: 

A New Manual of Physiology. 

A Course of Lectures on Physiology, 

As delivered by Professor Kiiss at the Medical School of the University of 
Strasbourg. Edited by Mathias Duval, M.D., formerly Demonstrator 
of Anatomy at the Medical School of Strasbourg. Translated from the 
Second and Revised Edition, by Robert Amory, M.D., formerly Pro- 
fessor of Physiology at the Medical School of Maine. 150 Woodcuts 
inserted in the text. 1 vol. i2mo. 547 pp. Price $2.50. 

"M. Kiiss was one of those modest scientists who love science for itself; who 
seek for the truth without caring whether they are well spoken of by the world." — 
Gazette Hebdomadaire. 

" The author exhibits a thorough familiarity with the late advances made in 
physiological science ; and, although we have a number of acceptable works on this 
subject, we welcome this as one particularly well adapted to advanced students. Its 
terseness gives the reader and student an impression that it is really a great and large 
work, boiled down to the dimensions of a handbook." — Cincinnati Lancet and 
Observer. 

"I have a good many workson the subject, but all of them seem to me in some 
respects a little antiquated ; and, in the examination I have made of these lectures, 
they seem to me to meet just the want which I and others of my^ time feel very ur- 
gently. I am also pleased to have some new illustrations, after meeting the old stereo- 
typed ones so many times." — Professor Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

"The arrangement of this manual of Physiology is judicious, and its discussions 
of the various subjects involved concise and accurate." — Philadelphia Medical and 
Surgical Reporter. 

" After a careful reading of the book, we do not hesitate to call it, on the whole, 
the best treatise on Physiology, of its size, now to be found in English. Kuss's style 
is full of vivacity and elegance, and abounds in picturesque epithets and bits of de- 
scription, which serve both to fix the reader's attention and to impress his memory." — 
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 

" This manual is the only concise treatis ^wherein the relations of Physiology to 
Histology are carefully presented, in the English language. The illustrations are both 
numerous and well executed." — Physician and Pharmacist* 



For sale by all Booksellers, or forwarded by mail to any part of the 
United States on receipt of the price and twenty -five cents extra, to prepay 
postage, by 

JAMES CAMPBELL, 

PUBLISHER, BOOKSELLER, AND STATIONER, 
18 Tremont Street, Boston, Mass. 



One zolume. \2mo. Cloth. $1.50. 

% fl^pologel art) ftftcraptotiral $riwn 

OF THE 

Bromide of Potassium, Bromide of Ammonium, 

Bromide of Sodium, and Bromide 

of Lithium. 

By EDWARD H. CLARKE, M.D., 

Professor of Materia Medica in Harvard University; 
AND 

ROBERT AMORY, M.D., 

Annual Lecturer for 1870-71 on the Physiological Action of Drugs on Man and 
Animals in the Medical Department of Harvard University. 

The work consists of two monographs, supplementary to each other: Part I. treat- 
ing of the " 1 herapeutical Action of the Bromide of Potassium and its Kindred Salts," 
while Part II. has the "Physiological Action of Bromides of Potassium and Ammo- 
nium" for its subject. 

NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
[From the Doctor, London, June, 1872.] 
"Although much has been written on the subject, Drs. Clarke and Amory have 
succeeded in adding a really valuable little volume to practical Therapeutics." 

[From the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, August, 1872.] 
"We regard it as a very valuable contribution to medical science, based on careful 
experiments and clinical observation. Every practitioner should read it." 

[From the American Journal of Insanity, July, 1872.] 
" We commend the work to those engaged in treating diseases of the nervous sys- 
tem, and to the profession generally." 

[From the Richmond and Louisville Medical Journal, June % 1872.] 

"This little work can be fully recommended: it costs little; it is concise, lucid, 
physiologically and therapeutically instructive ; embodies much ii not all of the val- 
uable material scattered over the vast field of Journalism ; it is pleasantly written, 
well printed, and well bound." 

[From the A merican Journal of Pharmacy, June, 1872.] 
"The medical literature in both essays has been extensively consulted, critically 
examined, and carefully compared with the experiments and observations of the 
authors ; thus many interesting facts have been established which must prove very 
valuable to the medical practitioner." 

[From the Philadelphia Medical Times for June, 1872.] 
" Given a pure drug, the physiologist experiments with it upon man and animals, 
carefully noting its absorption, its elimination, its action while in the economy, and 
deducts certain conclusions, which he places in the hands of the therapeutist, who, not 
forgetting the changes produced by a pathological condition, is guided by them in the 
treatment of disease. Judging, by this standard, we pronounce the book before us to 
be a model. We thank Drs. Clarke and Amory for their contribution, and express a 
hope that the supply of such books may, like Tennyson's brook, 4 go on for ever.' " 

For Sale by all Booksellers. 

JAMES CAMPBELL, Publisher, 

Boston. Mass 



A NEW BOOK ON SANITARY SCIENCE. 



FILTH DISEASES 

AND THEIR PREVENTION. 
By JOHN SIMON, M.D., F.R.C.S., 

CHIBF MEDICAL OFFICER OF THE PRIVY COUNCIL AND OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
BOARD OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. 

Printed under the direction of the State Board of Health 
of Massachusetts, i6mo. Cloth. $1.00. 



The undersigned members of the Massachusetts State Board 
of Health would respectfully, but earnestly, urge upon all per- 
sons the careful perusal of the following masterly essay by 
Mr. Simon, Chief Medical Officer of the Privy Council and of 
the Local Government Board of England. If the practical sug- 
gestions made therein were acted on by all citizens, hundreds 
of lives now annually doomed to destruction would be saved, 
and the health and comfort of the people greatly increased. 

Henry I. Bowditch, 

Richard Frothingham, 

J. C. Hoadley, 

R. T. Davis, 

Daniel L. Webster, 

J. B. Newhall, 

W. L. Richardson, Sec'y pro tem., 

Members of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts. 



PUBLISHED BY 

JAMES CAMPBELL, BOOKSELLER, 

Boston, Mass. 



The Publisher would invite the attention of the public to 
the follozving admirable reviews of Dr. Simon's book 
on Filth Diseases, and would urge ttpon every one 
the importa7ice of a careful examination of the book 



itself. 



From the Boston Traveller. 



It is comparatively rare that a work by a thoroughly scientific medical man comes 
from the press in such a shape as to be of practical value to the non-professional reader. 
Either from the terminology employed, or the subject treated, medical books and 
reports are only to be found on the shelves of the physician's library. Such is not, 
or should not, be the case with a small volume recently published by James Campbell, 
of this city, it being the American reprint of a most masterly essay by John Simon, 
chief medical officer of the Privy Council and of the Local Government Board of 
England. The essay is most cordially commended by the members of the State Board 
of Health of Massachusetts, and certainly no intelligent householder should fail to read 
it carefully, and profit by the information contained in its pages. Its title, " Filth 
Diseases and their Prevention," indicates the particular line of investigation followed 
by Dr. Simon ; and his conclusions, based on statistics and results of careful investi- 
gation, are thoroughly logical. He assumes at starting that the raison d'etre of sanitary 
authorities, like our boards of health, is the fact that very much disease is preventable ; 
and that it is true that the mortality from diseases is vastly greater than it would be 
if the existing knowledge of the causes of disease were applied. Of all the removable 
causes of disease, Dr. Simon justly considers the chief to be uncleanliness : that is, 
first, the non-removal of refuse matters ; and, second, the license permitted to cases 
of infectious disease to scatter the seeds of infection. He says that a bad odor is by 
no means a sure warning against the presence of poisonous matters. That they may 
exist without any odor whatever, and that disinfection by no means consists in covering 
up one bad smell by another equally offensive but more pronounced. He goes thor- 
oughly into the subject of disinfection, and shows just how it should be done to be of 
any value. Interesting cases are quoted, showing in what subtle ways these ferment 
poisons, such as cause typhoid fever, are spread abroad, manifesting their results miles 
and miles away from their source, being carried in air, water, milk, and other vehicles 
suitable to preserve their vitality. The subjects of typhoid fever and cholera are quite 
fully discussed in relation to their preventability, as well as the relation of cause and 
effect which filth may bear to consumption. 

A large portion of the essay is devoted to the question of house drainage and pub- 
lic sewerage, with suggestions of the utmost importance to every householder. Dr. 
Simon shows just how and in what particular way the public sewers, when insufficient 
or defectively ventilated, may become exceedingly dangerous. Apropos of this subject 
of ventilation of sewers, it is interesting to see how his judgment coincides with that of 
the gentlemen who opened the rain pipes into the sewers, in 1874, m this city, and for 
which they have been soundly abused by some medical men, particularly by one re- 
cently in the columns of a morning paper. That writer made out a frightful increase 
in mortality by comparing statistics of 1874 an d 1875, when, as he admits, the rain 
pipes were let into the sewers during both years. He, however, unfortunately for his 
argument, took the total mortality instead of the mortality from zymotic diseases. 
Now, he can hardly claim that sewer gas causes apoplexy or heart disease ; and, if he 
takes only the diseases which can be claimed to be caused by filth, he will find a very 
gratifying decrease in the mortality in the first three months of 1875 when the sewers 
were ventilated, as compared with the same months in 1874 when they were not. It 
is simply because the sewers are not yet sufficiently ventilated that we occasionally 
notice the offensive odors. Dr. Simon considers this matter of ventilation of sewers 
of the utmost importance. His essay is delightfully clear, and free from technical 
terms, and can be read with pleasure and profit by every person of ordinary intelligence ; 
and, if landlords will act on his suggestions, much sickness and death may be prevented. 



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